


Overflow

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Series: Survivor Vee Wong [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Awkward Boners, Blow Jobs, Come Swallowing, M/M, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Rimming, Size Difference, Size Kink, Wrestling, background Cait/Curie, background Nick Valentine/Deacon, background Strong/F!OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 07:07:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9480482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: Danse has been cast out from the Brotherhood, and finds comfort in unexpected places.





	1. Drifting

**Author's Note:**

> This is the crackship that ate my brain. Originally [this tumblr post](http://chocochipbiscuit.tumblr.com/post/149725983495/uranium-glow-%CA%96) went around and placentalmammal tagged me in it as a joke, and after a lot of enthusiastic yelling it somehow gelled into a real ship. I yelled a lot, mumbled a lot, and otherwise give credit to placentalmammal for cheering and betaing and dealing with my numerous run-on sentences (“can I buy a period?”) and pointing out that I had dramatically failed to consider the volume of mutant ejaculate relative to a human’s.
> 
> I would also like to note that while I borrowed from some of the ‘what if Danse and Piper were Jewish’ headcanons I saw floating around tumblr, but as I’m not Jewish, any errors are all mine. Many thanks to lee-atwater for reading through and nudging me from the worst of it.
> 
> Also thanks to seaborgois and ialpiriel for generally cheering me on and encouraging this crackery.
> 
> Title comes from An Act of Kindness (Bastille). Originally thought of naming the fic ‘Overflow (and start to break)’ but it felt both a little too self-indulgent and broke the theme of the one-word chapter names.
> 
> Thank you to anyone else who decided to read this fic about self-loathing synths and mutants with big green ween.

Danse is blind, drifting— anchored only by his power armor and the crush of memory, an abyssal pressure that makes his breath sit heavy in his lungs.

It would have been kinder to leave him be, to think himself as utilitarian as a pistol, a boot. An item with no purpose beyond its function.

(Or: if they were going to give him false memories of a childhood that was never his, why couldn’t they have given him a kinder history, one _without_ a loving family buried in cold earth? It is crueler to remember community, now that he has no friends, no family, no one to sit shiva for him. If he can even claim mourning rites for a false person.)

So he buries himself in function, follows Curie around the clinic and lifts the things she asks him to do. Bend at the knee, rise. Move. Follow orders.

She trills delightedly, and he would think she’s overdoing it in some pathetic attempt at sympathy (but she is a synth too; how much of this is her obeying her own programming? At least when she was a Curie model he didn’t have to trouble himself with wondering where those lines between programming and personality blur) except she gives that same delighted trill when Cait drops by with a smirk and a bag of ripe mutfruit, or when Preston comes in with apologies and an injured puppy, or when Strong—

Actually, Danse suspects it might still be that cloying, patronizing kindness. Which disturbs him more that she might put him on the same level as that _abomination_ than thinking she might think him some fragile bot in need of fixing. As if his mechanical heart and wires are torn out for display.

Unfortunately, Curie often sends Danse and Strong on the same assignments. He can’t fault her; he and Strong are the most physically capable in Sanctuary, after all. Between his power armor and Strong’s mutant bulk, they are easily able to clear detritus and take care of tasks that require more strength than skill. Unfortunately, Danse’s Brotherhood training gave him little practical knowledge: how to fix a pipe, how to roof a house, or (much to his dismay) even how to mind children without reducing them to tears.

“Shame on you, Monsieur Danse!” Curie scolds, hands on her hips. She jabs a manicured nail in the air, thrusts it and wags it admonishingly under his nose. “You do not instruct a child by threatening to deprive them of rations!”

“It was not— children need discipline—” he sputters, red-faced and sweating, humiliation blotching its way down the back of his neck.

Curie’s voice hits another trilling octave. “For shame!”

Over Curie’s head, Danse spots the formerly-crying child giggling as Strong lifts her over his head, settling on his shoulders and munching on a taffy with sticky-mouthed contentment.

Dully, Danse considers that perhaps there was a _reason_ he was never given charge of the squires.

 

* * *

 

 Danse and Strong are assigned to clearing bloodbugs from the nearby river, including destroying any egg clusters. Danse elected to wear his power armor, though every time he sees the blank chestplate and gauntlets is another reminder that he is no longer a member of the Brotherhood. Both synth and mutant are armed with what Danse calls a strategic probing device and what Strong calls ‘big stick’ as they splash about in muddy water.

Their silence is terse rather than companionable, until finally Strong asks, “Why still wear bucket?” Strong splashes over a few steps, jabbing his stick at the riverbed.

Danse grimaces, but has given up on educating Strong on proper power suit terminology. “What do you mean?”

“Bucketheads threw Danse out. Why still wear bucket?” Strong asks, taking another splashing step.

Danse balks. “I am still— I still follow the Codex. It is more than a faction, it is a way of life.” He grits his teeth. “Not that I expect _you_ to understand the complex realities of my situation.”

“Is bad brotherhood if throw brother out,” Strong says, swirling the waters to a muddy churn.

Stiffly, Danse gives a rote response. “They instilled discipline and taught me much, for which I am still grateful.” The same answer he’s polished, staring at the ceiling at night. With enough work, it might start to feel natural.

Strong grunts, and Danse grinds his teeth, overcome with irrational fury that curls hot behind his ribcage.

Stumbling over some submerged rock and making far too much splash, Danse says, “I may not have been— who I hoped I was, may not have been worthy of serving those ideals, but they were good ideals.”

“Is selfish.”

“We are not selfish! We—” Danse chokes, sputtering as he remembers himself too late. “ _They_ see a way forward for humanity, preventing humans from repeating the mistakes of the past. _They_ keep technology secure from the rabble. _They_ instill order and discipline where they can. Surely you can see that life aboard the Prydwen is better than death in some raider camp, or even— or even—”

Strong interrupts Danse’s stumbling defense with a grunt. “Strong like settlement better. Have hot food. Have hot water. Have ‘shower,’” Strong says, tongue still thick and clumsy around the new word. “Have friends.”

“The Prydwen has all those things,” Danse retorts, still stung.

“Dumb blimp have dumb bucketheads.” Strong snorts, splashing to the edge of the shallow pond and stomping wet tracks through the dry dirt, thick cakes of grit clinging to his soles. “Is selfish. Brotherhood not kind. Only help themselves. Do not share.”

“We keep technology safe from those who will misuse it,” Danse repeats, but the words are dead ash on his tongue, bitter in his throat.

Strong turns, the light catching him at an odd angle to cast his face in shadow. “Danse not kind. Not helping because kind. Helping because bucketheads throw him out. Not care about synth. Or robot. Or Minutemen.” Words heavy without judgment, mere statements. “Only care now because have to, not want to.”

 

* * *

 

 While the General already cleared the Corvega plant of the usual riff-raff, Danse remains on alert as he and Strong enter the facility. The floor is littered various decomposing corpses and black patches of dried blood. It appears unlikely that any raiders returned during this interim; while they have questionable taste in decor, their style of corpses-as-ornamentation trends towards the more gruesome and deliberate.

That is still no reason to forgo vigilance.

“Focus on high value components with aluminum,” Danse says, words echoing too-loud in the vast emptiness of the main floor. “There may still be hostiles lurking, so be sure to—”

“I know!” Strong growls, stomping to the assembly line and dropping fistfuls of hubcaps into a sack. “Quiet!”

Danse clears his throat and pitches his voice soft. Perhaps taking a page from Curie will mollify the brute. “I know you do, but I am offering valuable tactical advice—”

Strong laughs like broken gravel, grating Danse’s ears. “If you know I know, why say?” His lips curl, baring his teeth. “Buckethead likes sound of own voice.”

Danse wavers, uncertain whether that’s meant as a smile or a threat display. He bites his tongue and swallows. Counts his breath. “Very well. Brevity is the soul of wit, after all. I won't trouble you further.”

Strong bursts into laughter, slapping his belly. “Ha! That is ironic!”

Danse quickly checks for an anvil overhead.

“That means funny because man who say it is windbag,” Strong explains, lips twisting into a pleased smirk. “Like Danse.” His eyes glitter, sly and strangely knowing.

Danse sputters, ashamed of the hot flush creeping up his neck. “What do you mean?”

“That is from Shake Spear,” Strong says solemnly, eyes distant as if quoting from memory. It takes Danse a few moments before he recognizes it as the brute’s pronunciation of Shakespeare. “Play is Hamlet. Man who say it is Polonius,” he continues, voice slow as he enunciates each syllable with precision. “He is big windbag. Talk too much. Give advice not need or want.”

“I… see,” Danse says at last, the words roiling in his stomach. He is only familiar with Shakespeare’s work through word of mouth, and knows only the most famous plays and characters.

And apparently in less detail than a _mutant_.

He stomps, sweeps the area and almost at random picks a line of rods. It’s steel, not aluminum, but at least the clink of metal helps bury his own thoughts. “Who taught you that?” Because surely the abomination can’t _read_.

“Curie and Deacon read,” Strong says. He grins. “Are good friends. Even if Curie not like Macbeth.”

“Is that your favorite?” Danse asks, voice high and strange with disbelief, his throat tight. At Strong’s mute nod, he asks, “Why?”

“Tell secret of human success. ‘Milk of human kindness.’” Strong hefts his sack, the aluminum rattling within. “Is why Minutemen will win. Is why bucketheads will lose.”


	2. Rituals

Danse swings open the bathroom door, then balks, staring.

Oblivious to Danse’s gawking, Strong continues urinating.

Danse boggles at the sheer size of him. He always knew the brute was big, but that was in simple recognition of the mutant standing head and shoulders above everyone else, his fists bigger than Danse’s head. Very different to see that massive cock, even flaccid, cupped in one of Strong’s oversized hands.

His own dick twitches even as he sputters, “Lock the door! Have you no sense of shame?!”

“If shame, why watch?” Strong says pragmatically. When he’s finished, he gives two brisk shakes, then drops the loincloth and puts the lid back in place before flushing. He washes his hands in the sink, awkwardly drying them against a tattered once-white towel hanging under the mirror.

It’s not until Strong shoulders past him that Danse remembers why he originally went to the bathroom.

 

* * *

 

At precisely 6:30am the next morning, Danse locks the bathroom door and turns on the shower. The first icy blast of water is more stimulating— if jarring— than any amount of caffeine, though he never allows himself the luxury of waiting for it to warm before he rinses. Hot water is a precious commodity, and he is loathe to waste it.

(He is a synth. He does not deserve to care about these small comforts, any more than a rifle demands a warm cloth for cleaning.)

He lathers with a thin sliver of yellow soap and wipes brisk circles over his chest and shoulders. Shakes his head under the water, scrubs behind his ears and on the back of his neck. Down between the toes. Another lather with soap, a moment of hesitation, then wiping down between his buttocks. Cleanliness is a virtue, after all.

After, the water still drumming over his shoulders and muting any incidental cries he might make, he slumps his forehead against the tiled wall, one palm flat against it and the other cupping his half-hard cock. The one small luxury he allows in his routine, this private moment with the hot water steaming around him, the air fresh with soap. He strokes himself, thumb on the tip of his cock, and starts pumping up and down. Brisk, efficient, more focused on getting this shameful weakness _done_ and out of the way and then he can wipe everything down and leave the shower. Easiest if he thinks of past encounters, lovers’ hands and mouths and sucking cock in the huddled semi-privacy of the Rivet City stairwells, where half the fun was trying not to get _caught_ —

Unbidden comes the thought of an enormous green cock filling his mouth, Strong’s hands seizing his head and forcing him up, down. His whole body shaking at being so monstrously mistreated, and then, and then—

Danse spatters against the wall as he comes, biting down his startled cry.

 

* * *

 

The abomination is hideous.

Sullen-faced, lumpy-skulled, wretchedly vascular, and hideous.

Danse studiously minimizes all contact with the mutant, but the realization hits him between the eyes as he walks down the narrow hallway, body carefully angled to avoid touching Strong—

“You do not stink,” he says dumbly. He’d never been this close to the brute before, and always imagined him to smell like rot and old blood.

But the brute smells like clean skin, salt, and a hint of soap. _Danse’s_ soap no less, as if they use the same kind.

Strong blinks and pauses in place, brow creasing. It does little to improve his face as he grunts, “What?”

Danse’s neck prickles with horrified shame as he retreats to his room. “You do not stink.”

Strong bares his teeth, some travesty of a smile as he booms laughter. “Strong take _shower_. Dumb buckethead.”

In his room, Danse sweats as he locks the door. Drops into squats, push-ups. Hard calisthenics to drive out thoughts of Strong in the shower, Strong wet and glistening, Strong’s hard cock demanding satisfaction…

Danse finally collapses onto his bed, red-faced and panting. Too exhausted to even _consider_ jacking off to that shameful fantasy.

 

* * *

 

At precisely 6:30am, Danse is furiously masturbating in the shower, thinking of anything, _anything_ except that big green cock...

“Human! Hurry up!” Strong bellows, rattling the door.

Danse groans, resisting the urge to smash his head against the tile. Self-injury is not productive. “I’m finishing!”

“Strong have to piss! Will piss in buckethead bed!”

 _That_ jolts Danse. From anyone else, it might be hyperbole. From Strong, it’s a promise.

Danse drips water in wild spatters as he twitches aside the curtains, grabbing the towel and reaching for the door in one awkward move, still trying to cover himself as Strong bursts in, flips up the toilet seat, and lifts his loincloth.

Once again Danse finds himself staring, his cock half-twitching. He should be wilting with shame, but this close, the mutant could simply reach out with one hand, seize him, and…

Strong flushes the toilet and grunts, “Want hand?”

“What?” Danse sputters.

Strong points, and Danse drops his gaze to realize he’s dropped the edge of the towel, and it’s drooping, displaying his faint-hearted erection, but with Strong _watching_ it hardens.

The mortification scalds his tongue.

“Need hand?” Strong repeats. He gestures to the still-running shower. “Wasting water.”

“I—” Danse’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. Not quite sure what he’s agreeing too, what he’s hoping will come of this. Anything has to be better than standing naked and dripping in front of this abomination.

So he nods, and Strong turns off the shower. Danse barely has enough presence of mind to close the door and re-lock— not even any more running water to offer an illusion of privacy— as Strong sits on the toilet. It makes a ludicrously small seat for the brute, but he plucks the damp towel from Danse’s waist and sets it over his lap, patting.

Danse, still unsure whether that’s invitation or command, sits on Strong’s lap. He feels impossibly small, the slope of Strong’s legs tilting Danse so his bare back is flush with the hard wall of Strong’s chest. Solid, warm— comforting, almost, a sense of great strength under control, like power armor made flesh. The shower-water smears between them, Danse’s knees coming apart as he struggles to maintain his perch. By hooking his knees over Strong’s thighs, he manages to stay upright, his ass sliding down into the towel. The soft bulge of Strong’s cock nudges between his cheeks, and he can’t help thinking about the loincloth beneath the towel, and the cock beneath the cloth. Only two thin layers, if Strong chose to remove them.

But Strong spits into his palm instead, wrapping his fingers around Danse in a loose circle. His monstrous hands make Danse’s cock disappear, but his touch is deft, surprisingly gentle as he makes a close loop with thumb and forefinger, tightening as it slides down the shaft.

Danse closes his eyes, trying to forget where he is, and just _what_ invited him into this position, but closing his eyes only makes his other senses sharper. The faint earth-and-musk smell of Strong’s skin, the throb of the mutant’s heart behind him, a dull drum that resonates through Danse’s skin and spine. Too easy now to think of those enormous hands prying him apart, one wet finger sliding down his ass, thrusting into him. Strong could _take_ him if he wanted, forcibly stretch him with those thick fingers (and Danse’s cock throbs at the thought, so hard it hurts, his breath hissing between his teeth as he bites down a moan) and Danse would be naked and at the brute’s mercy, just another broken Institute toy given new purpose.

Danse gives a choked grunt, his climax hard and explosive. His cum spatters inside Strong’s hand and the mutant lets him finish, the milky liquid seeping between his fingers as he pats Danse’s shoulder, nudging him off his lap.

“Buckethead not waste hot water next time,” he says, rising to his feet. He washes his hands in the sink again, then leaves the bathroom.

Danse dries himself off again, though now it’s cooling sweat rather than fresh water. He thinks about taking another shower, but the brute did have a point— Danse has used quite enough hot water for the day.

He takes a minute to collect himself, splashing water over his face. Cracks open the door and stiffens as he spots Deacon loitering outside.

Deacon grins, pushing up those obnoxious shades with his middle finger. “Nothing beats a hot shower, huh?”

Danse resolutely ignores Deacon’s smirk as he marches to his room.

 

* * *

 

Danse catches himself tensing around Strong from then on, though the brute appears to have no change in behavior. Strong still follows Curie’s orders, accuses the Brotherhood of being ‘bad brothers,’ and otherwise ignores Danse.

His own thoughts, however, drift more frequently to the thought of those big green hands and that massive cock. Dance always enjoyed the thought of service and submission, kneeling before a superior officer or bending over for a tersely-worded command, but his fantasies take a rougher turn.

Sometimes he locks his bedroom door and touches himself, thinking of Strong bursting in to demand payment for that handjob. Danse cups his cock, thinking of how small he is next to that tower of bone and muscle, how inconsequential any struggle would be. He could make a protest, perhaps, but it would be token at best; Strong could easily seize him, dump him on the bed with his ass in the air.

(And Danse kneels, leans forward on his forearm. Thinks of those massive hands arranging his limbs, about the shame of his hard cock while the monster prepares him for entry.)

Strong might take his time, a few swipes of that massive tongue rimming Danse’s ass before adding a finger.

(And Danse slips a well-lubricated finger into his ass; a little too fast, but it adds to the fantasy, that edge of roughness as his hole tightens around that one finger.)

Or maybe two— but the fantasies that really get Danse hard, that make him gasp and sweat and moan, are the ones where Strong _doesn’t_ take his time. Doesn’t bother, just sets him down and thrusts into him with a massive push.

(And Danse slides in a second finger, then a third, bites his own wrist to keep from groaning as he pistons them in, out.)

There’s a dull peace to the thought— if he were to let Strong use him, Danse would no longer have to take any responsibility for his own pleasure, his own response. By having that control taken from him, Danse can simply _be_. No more decisions, no more guilt.

(But even that thought is a guilty one— what sort of person gives up their sense of self? But Danse was never a person, only a machine with delusions.)

At least Strong _was_ human, once. Danse never was.

Danse presses his forehead into the pillow, a precarious tripod on his knees and head. Tension corded through his shoulders and chest as he finger-fucks himself, using his other hand to stroke his cock. He comes with a groan, spilling himself on the covers, clenching around his fingers.

 

* * *

 

Danse steels his spine, waiting two long breaths to gather himself.

Finally, he knocks on Strong’s door. One brisk rap, then tests the handle. It is already unlocked, so he slips in even as Strong calls, “Who’s there?”

“A soldier never leaves his debts unpaid,” Danse says primly, standing at attention in front of Strong. Shoulders square, heels together, hands at his side. A reminder that this is a formality, protocol, equal exchange. Something to get the looming spectre of just _when_ Strong expects reciprocity out of his head. “I never— I thank you for your service, last time, but I cannot in good faith continue without repaying your favor.”

Strong blinks, still sitting on his mattress on the floor. “What?”

Danse keeps his gaze locked straight ahead, over Strong’s ear. “For the other day. In the bathroom.”

Strong snorts, rolling onto his side. “Buckethead think too much. Owe nothing.” He closes his eyes, rubbing them with his fist.

“But I can’t— Look, don’t you want something in return?” And if only Strong would take that offer, seize it— because the horrified realization comes that maybe Strong won't simply behave like an animal, that Danse will have to plead for permission to be used. It’s demoralizing.

Strong cracks his eyes open, dark and animal-like. “No. Strong did because want. Not because want favor.”

Danse clenches his fist, grinding his teeth. “It was not— look, I don’t feel comfortable having this between us. I’d feel much better setting things even. So to speak.”

Strong rolls his eyes, a distressingly human gesture from that oversized abomination. “If want sex, do it because _want_. Not because favor.” He pats the mattress. “If _want_ sex, come here.” The patting stops, his crude features fixed into a glare. “If not want sex, go away. Is bed time.”

“I. I _want_ ,” Danse stumbles, too late to make an expeditious retreat. He gulps and licks his lips, trying not to think of it as an invitation. Takes a deep breath. “I would like. To provide you oral stimulation.” Swallowing, he hastens to add, “If that is acceptable to you, of course.” To ask Strong to fuck him seems an insurmountable barrier, too much of an admission of things Danse is loathe to accept.

“Good. Buckethead can’t talk, then,” Strong says, and Danse flushes, unsure whether that’s mockery, but Strong’s broad features give no hint one way or another. Either utterly deadpan or meant as literal truth.

Strong flips up his loincloth, rolling onto his back and tucking his knees up.

Danse falters. “Wouldn’t you— wouldn’t you rather be standing?” he asks weakly, thinking about how small he’d feel kneeling in front of Strong, a primitive form of physical worship. There’s a tingling warmth to that thought, muddled with shame.

Strong rolls his eyes again. “No.”

Danse crouches, knee-crawling his way between Strong’s legs. He tucks his legs around Strong’s hips, sitting down, and Strong hooks his knees over Danse’s shoulders. Firm, heavy— the pressure’s a sort of relief, reminds Danse of how impossibly small he is next to Strong’s overbuilt scale. He wraps one hand around Strong’s cock— and the mutant’s not even hard yet, a fleshy heft that feels strange and odd as Danse starts stroking, sucking his teeth to gather saliva.

Growling, Strong says, “Dry. Want lube.”

Danse balks. “I didn’t realize mutants preferred…?”

Strong groans. “Feels better. Is not Strong’s first time.” He cocks his head, crinkling his nose. “Is buckethead’s…?”

“No! No,” Danse stutters. “With an abom— with a mutant, yes. I simply meant— I was surprised. I mean. Is saliva acceptable?”

Strong nods, mouth turning down in a thin line. “Talk too much.”

Chastised, ears itching with shame, Danse spits into his hand. He rubs his palms together, cups his hands around Strong’s cock again. Stacked, one over the other, his mouth on the tip. He tongues the soft underside of the glans, surprised to realize Strong is circumcised. He wonders what this means about Strong’s pre-mutant history; Danse has encountered few other circumcised men in the Commonwealth.

(Danse has no foreskin either— his initial memories implied that was for religious purpose, but since he cannot trust his implanted memories, now he wonders whether most synths lack foreskin. Why would the Institute give their creations an ultimately useless scrap of skin, after all?)

But that’s idle speculation for another time. Danse sucks, hollows his cheeks and forces himself down the still-soft shaft, feeling it swell against the roof of his mouth as he swallows down. An impossible fullness that makes his lips ache, struggling not to scrape his teeth along the mutant’s skin. His tongue probes, swirls— finds a vein running under the shaft, flicks along it as he tries to will his mouth open. Almost choking with the fullness of it, until Strong grips the back of his head, fists a meaty hand into his hair and pulls him back.

“More tongue. Not throat,” Strong rumbles, and it’s easier for Danse to imagine that as an order, to consider this part of fulfilling his assignment.

Strong wants a blowjob, Danse will _give_ him that blowjob. So he twists his hands, spit-slippery and stroking up, down, moving his wrists to try and work as much of Strong’s cock as possible. There’s no way Danse can take all of him, not without pushing into his throat (but god, even that seems amazing— the white-hot choke of it, the fullness in his mouth, even the inevitable soreness, the scrape of teeth and the dizzying breathlessness) but Danse tries to provide an illusion of depth beyond what his pitiful mouth can handle.

Strong’s hand rests on top of Danse’s head, pressure without guidance, sinew casting shadow on that skin. Danse wishes, for a moment, that Strong would be more forceful— pull his scalp taut, shove Danse’s head down his cock. Fuck his face, _make_ him move. But service is its own sort of pleasure, the guilt and shame of it dripping down his ears, his cheeks, his own cock half-hard. Danse is a tool, an object with purpose— and if that purpose is servicing an abomination, so be it. Danse is the lowest of the low, a _thing_ designed only to serve, not to have thoughts and wishes of its own.

But he can’t help but wish that Strong would grow tired of this game and fuck him senseless.

Guiltily, Danse moves his lower hand, thumb stroking down to feel Strong’s balls. Smooth and hairless, drawn tight with excitement as Strong growls. He retreats back to the twist and jerk motion, thinking of how much he’d love to feel those balls slapping against his ass Strong pounds him.

Easier to slip into the dull monotony of motion, repetition. Up, down. Suck, swirl. A salty seep of precum, sharp on the tip of his tongue. His jaw aching, but Strong isn’t done. Not yet. Danse deserves no respite, not until the abomination orgasms. There’s a soothing cadence to it, not unsimilar to the rhythms of drill or calisthenics. Lets his thoughts sink into the physicality of it, the tight point of tension between his shoulders, the way it’s easier to let his mouth hang slack around Strong’s cock rather than try to create more pressure, especially with how big Strong is.

“Human. Going to come,” Strong groans, and Danse faces a moment’s indecision— pull back? Stay? Spit? Swallow? Spitting it out feels messy, disgusting to level this onto the brute’s blankets, but swallowing implies some degree of acceptance. The vein jumps beneath his tongue, throbbing.

Hesitation makes his choice for him, the mutant spilling a hot rush of semen into Danse’s mouth, thick and musky. Danse was expecting it to be bitter, but there’s a strange sweet undertone to it— either diet or some odd biological quirk. A spurt dribbles over his lips, spattering his chin, and he swallows, then swallows again. Almost alarmed as Strong releases _another_ wave of semen, an impossible volume that Danse is forced to swallow lest he suffocate.

Strong finally finishes with a sigh, and Danse dares to let go.

The lingering cum sits hot and heavy in his throat, and Danse wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

He swallows.

“Will you— require any further services tonight?” he asks, licking his lips. Cleanliness, he tells himself. He wipes his chin with his fingers, but refrains from licking them. Cleanliness. Not because he enjoyed swallowing the abomination’s semen.

Strong chuckles, shaking his head. “Is bedtime.” Ruffles Danse’s hair, grinning. “Thank you. Is enough.”

 

* * *

 

“Now, when she’s asking ‘wherefore art thou, Romeo’ she is not asking _where_ he is, physically! She is asking him _why_ he is, why he has that name and why that means he must be Montague! Names are a very important human convention, but utterly arbitrary!” Curie chirps, sitting on an overstuffed cushion with her legs crossed, tattered booklet on her lap.

Strong peers over her shoulder, kneeling on a folded blanket. “Why not change name? Then they be together.”

“Because names are bound with identity, my big green goon,” Deacon says. “It’s why I change mine every few years.”

Danse sits miserably on a nearby chair, knees drawn tightly together and hands folded in his lap. Part of building a new life for himself (assuming he _has_ one, assuming he can find purpose beyond direct orders) requires integrating himself into the life of the settlement, and joining the reading group with the synth, the synth-sympathizer, and the abomination had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“But humans have many names.” Strong wets his lips, brow crinkling as he recites with dull concentration. “Piper Wright.” The gaps between names like stones. “Robert Joseph MacCready.” Another long pause, recovering from the effort of MacCready’s multiplicity of names. “Preston Garvey.” This one lighter, almost rumbled off the tongue.

“Those are given names. I chose mine,” Deacon says, leaning back with his arms behind his head, ankle over his knee and lap spilling open. “No family name, no first name, just the one.”

Strong nods solemnly. “Strong choose own name.”

“But didn’t you have a human name, before?” Danse asks, the words dragged out of his throat on steel hooks.

Strong gives him a withering look, mouth drawn down. “Was human name. Not human now. Human name not matter to mutant.” He shakes his head and clumsily adjusts to sit cross-legged on the floor. Still almost at eye-level with Danse. “Danse can choose name too. Not buckethead anymore.”

Danse bites his tongue, sick and sour with misery. He never had a right to his own name, not when it was an artificial construct like so much else— and he’s gone by his last name for so long that even ‘Saul’ feels no more real to him than M7-97, like a holotag he’s long ago tossed aside.


	3. Hungers

“ _Small humans are weak! Need many to overpower STRONG!_ ” Strong bellows, children dripping from his arms and legs, two toddlers clinging to his left ankle and another sitting on his right foot, arms and legs wrapped about his calf.

Rather than alarm, the children respond with a chorus of giggles, and a gangly girl jumps to grab Strong’s elbow, dangling and feet swinging wildly.

“Look at them,” Danse mutters, tight and fierce, mechanical heart seized sick and sour. “They respond better to that brute than they do to me. I suppose even children can sense when someone is a synth.”

“Speak for yourself, Asshole Victoriam,” Nick snorts. He breathes deep from a cigarette, a greying haze of ash and nicotine wreathing his features. Bare-headed, his metal skull gleams orange in the last rays of sunlight. His hat has been ‘borrowed’ by one of the boys playing next to the rows of tatoes, though the child comes obediently enough when Nick crooks his finger. The boy thanks him solemnly, and Nick chuckles, exhaling smoke through his ruined cheek. “Any time, kid.”

Danse swallows a sticky lump of anger, burning down his throat. “You have had more experience interacting with humans.”

“Don’t use _that_ excuse, crew-cut,” Nick responds evenly. “He taps his skeletal hand against the bench. “There’s no shame in being bad with kids. It’s not in everyone’s skillset.” The tapping stills, his yellow eyes glowing strange and ominous. “But don’t try blaming it on being a synth.”

 

* * *

 

“Was my performance unsatisfactory?” Danse asks quietly, a glass of water in his hand. Clean water, pure water— wasted on the likes of him.

He chose this late hour to have this conversation because few others are awake to overhear— the only one remotely stirring is the degenerate ghoul, if ‘stirring’ is the correct term for being passed out on the couch with his mouth open in a haze of Jet fumes.

Strong closes the refrigerator, an immense slab of cheese in his hand. He does not bother cutting it, simply biting in and starting to chew. “What?”

“Since you never requested any additional services, was my performance unsatisfactory?” Strong blinks at him, so Danse quickly mimes a jerking motion in the air, his mouth open.

Strong gurgles laughter. “‘Per-for-mance.’ Was good.” He grins, a broken-zipper smile with crumbs of cheese between his teeth. “Why? Want again?”

Danse swallows, runs his tongue over his teeth. “If you were to request it, I would not be opposed.”

“Buckethead talk too much. If want, ask. If don’t want, don’t.” Strong shrugs, gulping down his snack.

“But if you were more decisive, it would be easier,” Danse says, chiseling his words past the lump of tar in his throat. “Having a clear directive is important to me. It’s a kind of… of discipline.”

“What?”

“Obedience is a virtue.” Because it may not be halakha, but it was the best he’s had. The Codex offered its own precepts, just as the Brotherhood had offered community.

Strong crinkles his brow, cramming the rest of the cheese into his mouth. “Is this from bad brotherhood?”

“It’s not— they aren’t bad.” Danse inhales through his nostrils, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Exhales. For whatever little it’s worth, he will honor Strong’s questions with as much dignity as he can muster. “But it is a form of discipline. We stay true to the Codex, and obey without question. To question your commanding officer in a tense situation leads to delay, hesitation. And that can endanger lives.”

Perhaps it’s a betrayal of those tenets that he can more easily talk about this now, that it no longer catches barbed hooks in his throat. That certainty, and the guarantee of three square meals a day, had been what drew him and Cutler towards the Brotherhood. If Danse traces that thought back through the labyrinths of memory, he might even confess that _security_ had drawn him more than any thoughts of repairing the world.

Strong grunts, shaking his head. “Sound stupid. Brothers should only obey if want.”

Resentment prickles Danse’s tongue, turns his words sour. “And your leaders don’t beat you? At least we formalize it through chain of command.”

“Is mutant way to question. If it works, is strong. We keep doing. If weak leader give weak orders, we not obey. Get new leader. If bad leader is weak— loses fights, loses raids— we need new leader.” He frowns, face distorted in a grimace. “So if buckethead leader ask for sex, you obey?”

Danse balks, face cold, the blood fleeing from its surface. “Not— not like that. That’s an abuse of authority.”

“But Danse want ‘clear directive’ from Strong.” At Danse’s nod, he shrugs. “Here is ‘clear directive.’ If want to fuck, ask. Strong not like to chase buckethead.”

And there’s a horrifying thought, the shame of it coating his tongue like ash. Chasing Strong. Danse licks his lips, mouth dry. “I would. I would like to suck your cock. May I?”

Strong laughs, a deep belly-laugh that rattles the walls and has Danse turning in horror to make sure Hancock’s still sleeping. “Ha! Yes. Just like that.” He grins, broad and broken, like some monster set to consume him. “Want standing?”

It takes Danse a moment to remember their last time, his last request— and he nods, cheeks aflame. “Your room. Not here.”

Strong snorts. “Is stupid to fuck where eat.” He turns down the dark hallway to his own room, and Danse follows, hoping all their companions are sleeping soundly. Space is not such a premium they have to share rooms, not any more— but the walls are thin, and Strong walks with a heavy step.

Danse shuts the door and locks it, but Strong doesn’t bother waiting.

Strong clears his throat, unfastens his loincloth and drops it to the floor. “Human on knees. Suck,” he says, but Danse has already dropped to his knees, not sure when his mouth went from dry to watering, hands clasped to Strong’s thigh. Their size difference makes it more difficult than he imagined— Strong’s too tall to make it an easy blowjob, not unless Danse goes into an awkward half-squat that will be murder to maintain, but Strong groans and grabs a wooden box, overturning it to spill out his meager possessions (a few skulls, a scrap of bright blue cloth, an incongruous teddy bear) and setting it in front of him. He plucks a pillow from the bed, setting it on top of the box. “Use that.”

Danse sinks into position, the raised box making things much easier. He closes his eyes, wraps his mouth around Strong’s cock, one fist at the base and the other cupped higher, a backstop to keep him from choking as he works up, down. The wet sucking sound is obscene in this small space, squelching over the fierce drum of his own heart and Strong’s ragged breathing.

It would be better if Strong moved, he thinks— better if Strong grabbed his hair, pushed him along. But that would require asking, would require putting voice to his midnight fantasies, would require taking a guilty respite from this already-shameful act to more fully endorse his own degradation.

He might be a synth, but he still has standards.

Strong growls with pleasure, rumbling through his belly, and Danse returns to the task at hand. Catalogues the feel, the taste of him. A clean salt smell, fresh sweat and warm leather, a hint of grit. The smooth slip of the mutant’s cock in his mouth, the dip where his tongue probes the mutant’s slit. The heft of the mutant’s balls against his hand, slapping the edge of his palm. Danse is so small in comparison, just a willing mouth and set of hands.

“Gonna cum,” Strong grunts, but Danse already knows, remembers the throb of the vein beneath Strong’s cock, the way his balls tighten before spilling his seed into Danse’s mouth.

Danse swallows without hesitation, rolling his tongue through its musky sweetness, lapping at Strong’s slit as more waves of semen come out. He gulps it down, sucking and swallowing, mouth washed in cum and more dribbling out the edge of his mouth. Danse finally opens his eyes when he no longer feels Strong drip, and pulls back to see the milky smear on top of Strong’s cock.

Messy. Unbecoming.

Licking his lips, he goes back with soft laps of his tongue. Doesn’t stop until Strong’s cock is fully cleaned.

Strong grins down at him, smug and content. “Want hand?”

Danse shakes his head, pushing himself to his feet. He’s already debased himself enough this night, after all.

He goes back to his room to masturbate furiously.

 

* * *

 

“Bar-bee-cue,” Strong repeats slowly, licking his lips.

Preston nods, clapping him on the back. “That’s right! The base is real simple— ketchup, vinegar, some molasses. Peppers, too. I like chipotle, but any will do in a pinch. Garlic and onion are good too.”

“Strong will teach bar-bee-cue to brothers,” Strong says decisively. “Is almost as good as milk of human kindness.”

“I— uh, thank you. I think,” Preston says. He coughs into his hand. “Okay, now if you stir the sauce, I’m gonna start the cornbread.”

Danse hovers uncertainly at the edge of the kitchen. Codsworth and Preston have the situation well in hand, even with Strong’s curiosity to distract them. The last of his ration bars sits in his pocket like a brick, heavy through the foil. He might as well eat it, make use of it. No sense in wasting the fresh supplies on a synth, after all. His system needs only so much in the way of calories for optimal performance, and the Brotherhood followed a prewar formula to ensure palatability and nutrition. There’s even _chocolate_ in it, a prewar delicacy by all accounts.

Unfortunately, it also tastes little better than a raw potato, and is dense enough to challenge any recruits who lack good dentition. Which in the current state of the Wasteland, means an unfortunate number. Even Danse would shave slices off with a knife before consuming it, back when he cared about such things. Back when he’d thought he deserved to care about such things.

Preston and Codsworth prepare a sumptuous meal of barbecued brahmin, with cornbread to catch the drippings and cobs of fresh corn. Everyone sets to with gusto, bumping elbows around the table while Danse watches from his corner. Even Strong eats at the table, though he’s sitting on the floor and still close to everyone else’s heights. He bites off the tip of the corn, cob and all, making loud smacks of appreciation.

“Buckethead not hungry?”

“I have my own rations,” Danse says miserably.

Piper rolls her eyes, licking sauce off her fingers. “And I eat Chinese food on Christmas. What’s your point?”

“It is a waste of consumable product.”

Strong rips into a slab of brahmin, chewing. “Is dumb. Food taste good.” Barbecue sauce smeared on his chin like some sort of bizarre war paint. “Why not eat?” He snorts. “If really want rat bar, eat later.”

“Hey, I’ve _had_ rat before. Them’s not bad eating,” Hancock chuckles.

“Buckethead rat bars look like brick. Also make shit like brick,” Strong informs Hancock

MacCready squawks, “ _Hey_ some of us are trying to _eat_ here!”

Hancock shoves MacCready’s hat over his eyes, ignoring his protest. “Hey, how’d you figure that?”

“Buckethead make noises when in bathroom.”

“Huh. I always just figured he was jacking off.”

“ _Hey_ some of us are trying to _eat_!” MacCready repeats, shoving his hat back up.

Strong grins. “Buckethead do that too.”

“That— that’s libel, mutant!” Danse sputters.

Piper laughs, covering her mouth and shaking her finger. “Nope, that’s _slander_. Spoken, not written.”

There is no sanctuary. Danse elects to make a tactical retreat to his room, gnawing furiously on the ration bar.

 

* * *

 

Danse sneaks out to the kitchen in the small hours of the morning, that tenuous borderline between late night and early morning. His belly rumbles, his hunger aching, cavernous. There were sufficient calories in that ration bar that he doesn’t _need_ food, not truly, so if he drinks enough water he may be able to convince his ill-designed body of that truth.

Strong is already in the kitchen with a tub of mutfruit pudding, tin spoon ludicrously small in his hand.

One burning flash of resentment, turned to low simmer in his gut— of course the abomination can give in to all his hungers, cares nothing for self-deprivation or discipline. Strong indulges in the pleasures of the moment.

(And Danse envies that, though he’ll never say it aloud. But in the haunted privacy of his own mind? Yes, he can admit this to himself.)

“Want?” Strong offers, tilting the tub at Danse.

Danse grimaces. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your snack.”

“Food is for sharing. Share all.”

“Unnecessary.”

Strong’s lips purse, gears creaking in that lumpy skull. “Is not for ‘necessary.’ Is for ‘want.’ Want taste?”

Danse hovers, uncertain and growling. The ration bar sits like a brick in his lower intestines, and his mouth tastes bitter and chalky, the minimally-sweetened cocoa powder more for caloric substance than anything approaching satisfaction. And even cold, he _knows_ the sweet bubbling richness of the pudding, remembers the way Strong kept sneaking fingerfuls from the bowl until Curie rapped his knuckles, the sweet crumble of it on everyone else’s forks and mouths as he banished himself to his room, tried to reject both the enticing scent wafting from the kitchen and the shared laughter and camaraderie around the kitchen table—

Strong pushes himself back from the table, patting his knee.

Somehow, that decides Danse. If ‘decision’ is the right word, if he wasn’t simply operating on some variation of call and response, body moving in memory of that first awkward handjob in the bathroom. Not so much ‘yes, I want this’ as ‘yes, _he_ wants this,’ and the vague acceptance that whatever happens, Danse will enjoy it.

Danse sits on Strong’s lap and Strong wraps an arm across his torso, elbow draped across his shoulders and hand resting at the bend of the hip, thick fingers loosely circling the thigh. Strong is warm, solid, a comforting beat that echoes against Danse’s spine, like a metronome to reset his mechanical heart.

(Maybe that’s what draws him. Danse is an artificial man, all his memories stolen from some other person, or maybe an amalgam of things he never had a right to believe were his. Strong may be an abomination, but he was human once. He rejected all the things that Danse wishes were his, and perhaps there’s a peace in that, an indifference that he envies.)

Strong digs the spoon into the bowl, deep enough to scrape the bottom, and brings up a heaping scoop of pudding. It threatens to fall off the spoon and spatter Danse’s lap, so Danse quickly opens his mouth and gulps for it.

It bursts on his tongue, explodes like a grenade. Sweet-melting shards of sugar and biscuit, a hint of texture over the plush-melt chunks of mutfruit, purple juice trickling out the corner of his mouth, and he’s starving, starving— belly growling, roaring, waking to full life and intestines clenching, a fierce demand for more than the dry ration bars he’s been forcing down his gullet, a longing so fierce it stabs like a knife, and he chews, chews, swallows, bolts it down so fast at first he’s not even sure he’s tasting it anymore, only picking up shrapnel-bursts of flavor.

“Is good,” Strong rumbles. “Is good. Chew more. Buckethead going to make himself sick.”

And it hurts almost as much as hunger, forcing himself to slow down, to make it last. Bolting his food won’t make it sit any more easily in his gut, but Strong’s patient, bounces his knees slightly. There’s a comfort to it, in being held— and it’s been a long time since Danse has been held, longer since he’s had a body next to his, and longer since he’s been fed by someone else. He had injured his arm in training and required assistance cutting his meals, and had tolerated a few teasing spoonfed bites before taking over his own nutritional needs.

This is different. This is nice.

This is an abomination.

 

* * *

 

With the last of his ration bars gone, Danse no longer has excuses not to take his meals with the others.

“You don’t eat. Why are _you_ here?” he asks Nick, balking.

The synth gives him a withering look, wire hand hooked into his coat pocket. “Believe it or not, some people believe meals are about camaraderie, not just food.”

“Besides, this very special model runs off Fancy Lads and farts,” Deacon says smugly, draping his arm across Nick’s shoulders with an absolutely shit-eating grin. “Something something carbohydrates, methane, energy. I’m no egghead but Sturges assures me it works.”

“I get no respect around here,” Nick mutters, the effect somewhat lost as Deacon shoves a battered box of Fancy Lads into his pocket.

“Very good, Strong! Now you want the onions to get nice and translucent…” Codsworth instructs, Strong wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “And yes, I know they can sting, but the flavor is worth it.”

“Want some help there?” Preston offers, leaning across the counter.

“No!” Strong bellows, smacking his palm on the counter and rattling the dishes. “Strong’s turn to cook!”

“About time. You _eat_ all the food,” Cait mutters, before Curie silences her with a kiss.

“And you’re doing very well!” Codsworth says, tripod arms spinning about his central chassis. “I confess, I wasn’t sure you’d be deft enough with the knife.”

“Strong good at chop!”

“Yes, though I blanch to think what you have practiced on previously.” Strong is already opening his mouth, so Codsworth quickly adds, “That was not a request, Strong. I prefer not to know.”

“What’s for breakfast?” Cait asks, propping her chin on her knuckles.

Strong grins. “Is scrambled eggs. With onion. Garlic. And peppers.” He crinkles his nose. “And toast. And sausage.”

“Don’t strain yourself there,” Cait chuckles. “Sounds good.”

“Did you scrape all the seeds?” Preston asks. “Not that I mind, but _some_ people—”

“It was just the one time!” MacCready groans, burying his face in his hands.

“But you did turn a very lovely shade of puce,” Curie says, sweet enough to make Danse’s teeth hurt and to make MacCready color like an eggplant.

“Strong scrape seeds extra hard for MacCready,” Strong says solemnly.

Danse finds himself at odds with the established chaos of their morning ritual— as much as it initially resembles a disorganized mob, once Strong bellows “ready!”, the rest of them fall into order.

When Danse tries to get the cutlery, he opens the wrong drawer and Preston pats his wrist, pressing the forks into his numb fingers as Deacon sets places for everyone. Curie places a teapot on the table, and Cait gallantly pulls out the chair for Curie before taking her own seat. Even Hancock saunters in just in time for breakfast, his clothing with a distinctively rumpled, slept-in look.

“Hey, crew-cut. Wasn’t expecting you here,” he chuckles, sliding into a chair.

“Some of us prefer to start our days early,” Danse says stiffly, scraping the ladle against the side of the plate as he serves himself.

Hancock snickers, sliding two sausages onto his plate. “I haven’t slept through breakfast yet.”

Danse grimaces, taking a forkful of eggs as everyone breaks into splintered chatter. Preston bemoans the exorbitant price of rad chickens while Curie listens sympathetically, Codsworth and Piper compare notes on removing ink stains, and when Hancock tells Cait an off-color joke, she grins and responds with an ear-blisteringly worse one.

Chewing, Danse reflects that whatever else he may think of the mutant, Strong _did_ make the food for him. Danse could understand if it was an exchange of obligations; meals in exchange for reading sessions with Curie and Deacon, or for cooking lessons with Preston, but he had not expected this level of companionship with the others. Unexpected, like— like—

Like a pepper seed down his throat, flooding his mouth with saliva. His nose drips like an old faucet as he doubles over wheezing.

“Aw cr— drat! Milk, milk!” MacCready yelps, but Cait’s already grabbed the pitcher and pours it into Danse’s unused mug.

“Drink up,” she growls, and Danse obeys, gulping it down.

“Strong sorry. Missed seed,” Strong says contritely, booming over Hancock’s hoarse laughter. “Buckethead okay?”

Still wheezing, Danse mumbles, “Affirmative.”

“Windbag’s still using polysyllables, so guess he’s okay after all,” Deacon snickers. He wipes an imaginary tear from his eye.

 

* * *

 

It’s not regular enough to be a habit, Danse tells himself. It’s not every night, or even every other night. Once or twice a week. Not even the same nights every week. This is something mutually enjoyable that is helping foster his companionship with the mutant.

Still, Strong’s face cracks into a split-melon grin when Danse enters his room (and even now, previous experience means Danse knows not to bother knocking, not when Strong always welcomes him and when knocking means an extra risk of getting caught sneaking into the mutant’s room) and he spreads his knees, sitting on the edge of his mattress. “Want to suck cock?” he asks cheerfully, far too loud in this small space.

Danse shakes his head, pushing his words off his tongue before they shatter down his throat. The same words he's been scripting since his unaccustomed second shower, carefully washing every part that might be on display. “Not tonight. I’d like if I—” _took it up the ass_ , “— were more receptive tonight.”

“If what?”

Danse can’t force himself to make eye contact, instead fixing his gaze over the mutant’s left ear. “If you were to anally penetrate me.”

Strong blinks.

Finally, Danse loops his thumb and forefinger into a circle and thrusts the finger of his other hand through it.

Strong’s mouth drops open with a surprised guffaw. “Ah! Okay!” He leans forward, patting the mattress. “Come here. Get naked.”

And it still lacks authority, more invitation than command, but if Danse listens to the content rather than the delivery, he can pretend.

Strong takes only a few moments to remove his loincloth, and is already naked by the time Danse pulls off his shirt. Danse is dwarfed by the mutant’s size, the sheer muscles on him— a sort of wretched vascularity that fascinates him every time he’s this close. Strong smells of dark soil, a hint of clay and dry sweat; nothing like metal and polish or the faint ozone smell of discharged lasers. Reassuring in its differences, because Danse will be unlikely to remember his previous lovers during the moment.

Danse pulls off his socks, dropping them to the floor. Unbuckles his belt, the jingle of metal on metal clashing in his ears. Squirms out of his trousers, belly tight, anxiety twisting behind his navel.

Strong leans over, sniffing his hair with a long sigh, hand stroking down his back. A long, heavy line, thumb rolling over his shoulder and down his ribs. Like a pet, really, as if Danse were an oversized dog. Or perhaps an undersized one, next to Strong’s bulk. Comfort at its most basic; Danse resists the urge to arch into it.

Danse rolls onto his belly, propping himself on his forearms. “Do you have lubricant?” he belatedly asks. An item he should have considered beforehand, but that would have involved more preparation, another admission that he _wants_ this, rather than accepting it happening as it comes.

Strong snorts, his breath hot across Danse’s back. “Of course.” He straddles Danse’s thighs, and Danse can _feel_ him hovering, an immense presence. His shadow heavy as any hand, one hand under Danse’s chin as he starts nuzzling. Massive lips and tongue wet, lips chapped but tongue soft, not even an edge of teeth as he laps at Danse’s shoulders and between the blades.

Danse squirms, pushes himself up— not that he can get very far, stopping when he feels the soft weight of Strong’s cock against his ass. “What are you doing?” he asks, and if his voice is a squeak, at least there’s only Strong to hear it.

“Tasting,” Strong says, thumb and forefinger on Danse’s throat, and there’s a strange fragility to it, knowing that the mutant could crush his throat with hardly an effort, but his touch is soft, gentle.

Danse swallows. “What do I taste like?”

“Salt. Metal. Like iron. Steel.” He swipes his tongue across Danse’s lower back, adds a long suck that has Danse clenching the blankets with an involuntary moan. “But human.” Strong growls, leaning back and squeezing Danse’s ass, parting the cleft. “Don’t know. Words not good.”

Danse buries his forehead into the cushion, breathing through his mouth in sharp, shallow gulps. Exposed, a prickle of cold against his exposed asshole, Strong’s thumbs on the fleshy mound of the ass. His balls hard, tucked tight against his belly as his cock stiffens. Strong’s tongue glides down the crack of his ass, warm and wet, and Danse lets out an involuntary moan as that immense tongue strokes up and down, teasing around his taint. Danse feels himself constrict, an involuntary tightness as Strong presses his tongue against his hole. Thinks about his fingers, his frantic nights jacking off to this fantasy, or a dozen variations thereof.

“You don’t— you don’t have to be so gentle with me,” he whispers, voice harsh with want. “I can take it. It’s not my first time.”

“Strong want gentle,” Strong grunts, and now— a dull pressure, tooth on skin, denting the flesh as he moves his teeth in a long scrape along the back of Danse’s thigh.

Danse bites his wrist, knees braced wide and waiting, waiting. Even this is a relief of sorts, letting Strong set the pace. Even if it’s not being ‘taken,’ it’s still obeying. Not as if Danse can force the mutant to be any rougher than he wants to be.

Strong pulls back, and Danse shivers, suddenly cold without Strong’s reassuring warmth above him. The mutant radiates heat like a furnace, something Danse never fully appreciated until now.

“What are you doing?” he asks, even as he hears the scrape of a jar opening.

“Getting lube,” Strong grunts. He returns, pressing a slick finger against Danse’s ass.

Danse thrusts back, takes it in a sudden swell. It’s big, bigger than his own fingers— still slipped in with ease, and Danse thanks whatever gods might be listening (if there are any left, if there are any that would listen to a synth, if the faith of the man who thought himself Saul Danse still exists somewhere in his coded brain) that he’s been masturbating with three fingers, so that he can take Strong so easily.

“Huh. Deacon wrong,” Strong says, both pleased and surprised as he twists, works his finger up—

Danse moans as it brushes his prostate, almost missing what Strong said. “What?”

“No stick up ass.”

“I never—!” Danse sputters.

Strong snickers, petting his free hand across the back of Danse’s head. “Here. Come in lap.”

Danse straightens up, on his knees and struggling to climb into Strong’s lap.

Strong scoops him up, one hand under Danse’s chest and the other between his legs, and settles him into place.

And much as Danse is loathe to admit it, it _is_ reassuring to be slung across Strong’s lap, ass in the air and his belly against the mutant’s cock. More skin contact, a desperate warmth he finds himself craving, even as the cool lube warms to body temperature. It’s thick, greasy— but better, he supposes, for what they’re about to do. More cushioning.

“Danse never have stick up ass?” Strong asks, and there’s no mockery to it, only a gentle curiosity that Danse finds himself answering.

“No. Not sticks. Fingers. Ah. One regrettable incident with a marker.” He groans, rocking himself back onto Strong’s finger. “I can— I can take another finger.”

“Buckethead not like saying ‘want.’ Says a lot of ‘I can,’ not ‘I want,’” Strong observes. A statement without judgment, voice neutral.

Danse’s heart stutters up his throat. “Is that what you want me to say?”

Strong snorts. “Want to know Buckethead having good time.”

Danse licks his lips. Swallows. Just his breathing, Strong’s breathing, the occasional squelch of lube. The ticking of his own heart.

“I want you to put another finger in me,” he says at last.

Strong shifts his hand, fans his fingers to cover the breadth of Danse’s back. Could scoop him up, throw him around like a toy— but doesnt. Instead sets his second finger next to the first, rocking his hand out, then in. A gentle stretch— and Danse would not have thought ‘gentle’ with Strong, but it’s a teasing slowness, his ass stretching to accommodate. Throbbing, clenching tight around those two fingers.

But when Strong stops, Danse whispers, “More.”

Strong pushes, slow and steady. Still slippery, so slick there’s no friction, only fullness as the mutant slides his hands into the knuckles, crooks his fingers and dips.

Danse clenches the sheets, burying his chin into the meat of Strong’s thigh. Feels good, feels wrong, feels like a thousand violations, if he can list them all. Being a synth, being fucked, being fucked by a _mutant_ , being so desperate, erection grinding down and into Strong’s lap, that he can’t pretend any more that he’s simply ‘acquiescing’ to Strong’s desires. And still, it’s not enough— not enough to thrust back, to grunt, to feel those fingers sliding in and out, but he wants to feel Strong’s cock in him.

(And some practical side of him, faced with Strong’s _actual_ cock pressing into his belly, swollen and massive, thick as his wrist, thinks maybe that should be better as a fantasy— but that doesn’t mean he won’t _try_.)

“If you were to— to enter me, I think I’m ready,” he says at last. And selfishly, some hot center of him wonders if he’ll break, if he _wants_ to be broken. The pleasure might be worth the pain, or at least it would be a suitably ignoble end for a discarded piece of machinery like himself.

“Want?” Strong grunts, fingers rocking in and out, almost soothing if it weren’t for the sheer size of him. Like an interior massage— and that’s another filthy figment to file away for the midnight hours.

Danse nods, bites his lip. Not sure Strong can even see that, so he says, “Yes.”

Strong pulls his fingers out, wiping them on the blanket with a rustle of fabric. Leans back, knees spreading, and Danse lists sideways without Strong’s torso to lean into anymore. Strong pets Danse’s ribs, broad thumb pressing down his back, and says, “Danse on top.”

“Wait— why?” Danse pushes himself up with one hand, staring at Strong. “I said I wanted—”

Strong rolls his eyes. “Want cock, yes. But Danse small. Easy to squish. So on top.” He tucks a hand under Danse’s armpit, nudging him upright. “Knees wide. Sit.”

Danse sits up, facing away from Strong. Thinks about maintaining this position, some attempt to distance himself from the act, but that seems both anatomically unlikely and somehow rude, as if by ignoring Strong’s face he’s ignoring the act. Because somehow he never consciously connected getting fucked by Strong to having sex _with_ Strong, to considering himself a partner rather than an object. So he turns, straddling Strong’s thighs with an aching stretch of his inner tendons, sitting back to cup Strong’s cock.

“Lube?” Strong asks, offering an open jar of some greasy ointment.

Danse chuckles, soft and awkward. “I think you used plenty already.”

Strong laughs, plucking Danse’s hand and dipping it into the jar. “Never too much.”

Danse takes a gob of— as much as he called it ‘lube’ it feels more like a jelly, almost a balm. He touches it to his palm, rubbing his hands together to let it squish between his fingers, warming it to skin-temperature before wrapping his hands around Strong’s cock. The thick lube glimmers translucent in the harsh light of the overhead bulb, but gleams rather than glistens— a different sort of sheen than the efforts of bare spit. Danse rubs up and down, making sure to coat it from the tip to the base. Not even sure he’ll be able to take all of it, if he’ll be able to slide down until his ass rests against Strong’s balls, but there’s no shame in ambition.

He leans forward, torso flush with Strong’s, hands slipping down the mutant’s torso, leaving a slippery trail as he grunts, trying to fit himself into position. Strong’s cock rubs against his, an incidental touch that makes his belly tighten as he reaches down. Holding the slick shaft, he slides himself down. Strong’s cock teases against his entrance, an immense pressure against his asshole. Far bigger than those fingers, and Danse remembers the way his jaws ache after each blowjob, wonders if he hasn’t made a mistake—

“Oh,” he says, hands shaking as he feels himself stretch, dilate. Then “ _oh_ ,” as he slides down, that initial entry the most difficult but now it’s warm and hard and _inside_ , alive and throbbing in a way those fingers hadn’t, his thighs quaking and the light flickers and everything feels like so much, too much, not enough, but Strong cups his ass with one hand, touches his face with the other and murmurs, “Is okay, is okay?”

“Is— is good,” Danse chokes, and he’s still going down, would have reached the full length of any other man by now but this isn’t any other man, this is _Strong_ , and he doesn’t stop until he bottoms out, until his ass rests snug against Strong’s skin, his body shaking, lines of sweat on his temple, stuck in his hair, tangled over his back and thighs. Strong’s warm, hot— so warm, radiates heat like a furnace, like a generator. It makes Danse feels like paper, thin and flammable. “It’s _really_ good.”

He doesn’t move, half-afraid that if he moves, maybe he’ll break the spell, that he’ll find out no, no, he _can’t_ take it, he’s not _able_ to take it, and he’ll be left empty. Afraid that this might be the last bit of human contact he’ll ever have, rooted in his own paralysis, over-full to bursting with flesh and heat because who would have ever thought they would _fit_ —

Strong pushes up on his elbow, pulling his knees so Danse leans against them, that motion sending tremors up his body, his spine, long lines of shudder and release and Danse smears his miserably-slick hands into Strong’s chest, clawing, desperate for anchor. So close now, Danse sitting in Strong’s lap and knees braced against his waist, so close every inch of them is in mad contact, the energy between them solid and chemical and Strong whispers, dry and coaxing, “Danse move?”

Danse shudders. Nods. Thinks about how nice it would be to just touch himself, to stroke his cock and simply relax, just _be_. But that’s not enough, no, and he doesn’t trust himself to balance between fucking himself onto Strong’s cock and palming at his own, so instead he reaches high, wraps one hand behind Strong’s neck and puts the other on Strong’s knee, bracing himself as best he can while starting that torturous slide up. And there’s just so much lube— slick, trickling down to smear his thighs, to coat Strong’s balls in a wet slap as he slides down again. No friction, just that slippery heat and pressure, the fullness of it pressing through him. Easy to imagine he’s a toy, floppy as a rag doll, some small thing trembling in the shadow of the forces much larger than him.

But Strong cups a hand under his ass, squeezes. Slides up, tilting his hips, and it’s just enough of a shift, that extra pressure against his prostate, that Danse moans loud and wet, forgets to stay quiet. _The walls aren’t thick,_ he thinks, sluggish and hazy, _but they should be thick_ enough _at least_. Then he can’t even think, lust-drunk and floppy as Strong wraps that immense hand around his cock, and his cock looks so pitifully small in that immense green hand, but he still trembles as Strong rubs him, twists his thumb and starts pumping his hips, small thrusts and Danse pushes down, back, wriggles his toes into the bed and tries to brace himself. Not sure if he’s gotten a rhythm, not yet, and can’t say who’s setting the pace anymore— Strong moves, strong and steady, slow waves of repetitive motion, a pattern to the pumps, never any risk of sliding fully out but giving a baseline, some constant thing for Danse to push himself against, fall into, erratic and loose-limbed.

And Strong is _smooth_ , which doesn’t surprise Danse any more. Strong swaggers bare-chested most days, and Danse has been inches from his belly, his scrotum, knows for a fact there’s not a single hair on him— but it’s still a wonder to touch these vast planes of smooth skin, the only roughness from puckers of old keloid and dry patches, nothing like the thick curls of hair over Danse’s own chest or coating his thighs.

Heat and sweat and the sweet pulse of Strong’s body in his, his thighs aching and his cock throbbing, and Danse shudders, whimpers, clenches his teeth to keep from begging, only relents enough to let out a terse, “Coming,” and Strong pulls back long and slow to let Danse orgasm, cock spurting between them, spattering over Strong’s belly and dripping down the dip of his navel.

“Please, please,” Danse groans. “Come in me. Please.” Because he’s swallowed mouthfuls of Strong’s cum, gone back and licked his cock clean, tried to clean up every drop of evidence— but somehow this seems better, more perverse. Let it come out, let him carry it in him, let it drip.

(He tries not to think about the last time he did this, with Cutler— last time to go bareback with anyone, before deciding brisk handjobs and blowjobs were tidier with anyone else, that condoms were necessary if they were going to fuck, that anything so _messy_ was unbecoming.)

Strong squeezes Danse’s waist, thrusts harder, deeper— and Danse groans, the soreness just startling to set in, last shreds of orgasm leaving, and he feels empty, full, all possibilities.

Strong comes, one last thrust, his arm over Danse’s shoulder, a tight circle of flesh and warmth, two bodies pressed together as the hot gush of him fills Danse. Wet, dripping, mingled sticky with lube and Danse can’t help laughing at the strange liquid warmth in his limbs, fuck-happy and stupid and impossible to think that he would have ever done this with _Strong_ , of all people.

“Is good?” Strong asks, beaming.

Danse chuckles. “Is good.”

Sliding off Strong is another mess, lube and cum everywhere, a wet smear on the blankets and Strong gallantly wipes his thighs with the matted bedspread but now, sweat cooling and the light flickering, his head spinning dull and light and a thousand and one thoughts vying for attention, all the previous shames come creeping back.

Strong rolls back into the bed in a nest of blankets, sprawling onto the pillow. Massive hand smoothing down the covers, and Danse watches, wonders if Strong will pat the mattress, invite him to stay.

But Danse leaves before finding out.

Some lines are best maintained.


	4. Distance

And even though the settlement’s grown, it’s difficult to maintain that distance. Danse and Strong still sleep down the hall from one another, still brush past one another on the way to the bathroom. Strong still cooks breakfasts and dinners and always bellows, “Come have taste!”, the smells of sweet and savory and browning meat as much a lure as the sound of his voice. And no, it’s not for Danse, it’s never for Danse _specifically_ , and he knows Strong would be cooking just as much whether or not Danse bothered showing up at the dinner table.

Danse tries treating it as a form of rationing, saving his reserves for these starving times. Tries not to think about how close skin-hunger is to appetite and appetite to desire.

(In some ways, it’s a relief that Strong doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t seem to care. May not even notice, not even any disappointment now that it’s been a week since Danse visited his room.)

Danse stays out of the idle surface chatter at breakfast, though that becomes more difficult as people leave. Their group has always fluctuated, between Wong dropping in and out and picking up various companions, and Preston traveling out to the settlements, and Hancock making his periodic trips to ‘check up’ on Goodneighbor, and any number of other ‘normal’ things that still alter the normal composition of their table settings.

But now Hancock’s gone out to Goodneighbor to ‘catch up on booze and gossip,’ and Deacon’s left with Wong for some outing that has her grim-faced and tired, dark circles beneath her eyes and lips twisted tight.

(In some ways, it’s a relief that Wong hasn’t tried to comfort him. She told him “be free,” when they’d left Maxson, after she’d spoken for him. After she’d bought his life in soft words and then tore those words to tinsel shreds. After she’d cursed and spat and brought him to the Cambridge station where he felt like something shrivelled and misshapen, some small snail in a shell that no longer fits, or that he never fit to begin with. He doesn’t know how to be free, but he doesn’t know what he would do in her shadow either. He’s just clanking, caught in the chains of his own making.)

So Danse tries to lose himself in Curie’s small tasks, struggles to read through the heavy lines of iambic pentameter when Curie loans him a copy of Macbeth.

It’s easier when he’s with the informal book club, MacCready and Preston reading through the dialogue and Strong occasionally grunting along. Danse shifts uncomfortably in his overstuffed chair, an itchy feeling in the base of his spine. Preston has an excellent reading voice, warm and mellifluous, not above melodrama as he reads the lines. MacCready follows with an occasional stutter, voice warming as he enunciates with gusto.

And it’s pleasant, in a way. Intellectually stimulating. Or at least provides a steady background, a higher chatter that helps soothe the metal-shred grind of his own thoughts.

It lasts until it doesn’t.

Diamond City radio has occasional news segments interspersed with music, but Preston is always quick to flip the stations whenever Travis’ voice comes on air, and Radio Freedom fares little better. Danse senses something in the air, some massive roiling thing, grease and kerosene, but he doesn’t talk, doesn’t share, doesn’t know who to ask or what to question.

But when Wong comes back— smelling of blood and ash, ozone sizzle and scorched leathers, face etched with fatigue, a bruise high on her neck— she tells him, brutal as a fist.

“The Prydwen’s gone.” She scowls and juts her chin, light flashing off her glasses. “I did it because I had to. I’m telling you because you deserve to know, directly from me.”

And it’s his world dropping all over again, his stomach dropped below his belly, his words unspooling into strings of letters and binary. “Why?”

“I had to,” she repeats. She crosses her arms, steps back hard on her heel. Bracing. “Their goals aren’t fucking compatible with the Minutemen, and sure as hell aren’t _fucking_ compatible with mine.”

“But—” and he thinks _Maxson, Ingram, Quinlan_ , “—there were good people aboard the Prydwen.” The names rattle in his skull, like glass marbles in a white bowl. “There were squires. There were _children_.”

“And there are children at the Castle. There are children who are synths. There are children who are _ghouls_ , Danse.” Her lips twist down, sharp and bitter. “I did what I had to.”

And he remembers— “What about Haylen?” he asks, because if she could spare the life of a miserable synth like himself, but not the life of the woman he thought she’d loved—

Wong goes still, cold. Hands gone into white-knuckled fists, pressed flat to her side. “She is alive. And free to make her own choices.”

 

* * *

 

“If I escaped from the Institute, why don’t I remember?” Danse asks Curie, hands tingling with the harsh soap he uses to help scrub down the clinic. Deacon’s in the room as well, facing away from them and swabbing up his patch of floor.

She wrings out a towel into a bucket, tilting her head as she does when contemplating a difficult problem. “Memory implants.”

“And who would have done that for me?” Still strange to think of a ‘self’ that wasn’t him, to think that nothing he has— his name, his memories— are truly ‘him,’ if they can be changed as easily as his clothes.

Curie smiles, the light soft over her face. “I am sure you can think of sympathetic organizations.”

Danse winces. He had never considered just _how_ the Railroad dealt with escaped synths, beyond stealing them away from the Institute. “But if— if I were helped by _them_ , then why would they allow me to join the Brotherhood?”

“Because part of believing synths are equals means believing you get equal opportunity to fuck up your own life, too,” Deacon says, rough and haggard, his shades tight to his face, his knuckles red and raw and Danse remembers he’d left with Wong, remembers he’d had that same haggard look, remembers— “But yeah, I bet it hurt like shit for them too.” Voice savage and bitter. “All the free will in the world, and look where it gets you.” He leans forward, hand braced against the wall as he arches forward, back. Hisses between his teeth as something cracks.

Danse laughs, broken-spring sharp and savage. “Hurt…! I believed I was an orphan! How could they just _give_ me that pain?”

“Or a happy family you could never meet?” Deacon challenges, and even with his sunglasses to hide his eyes, his scowl twists like a knife. “They did the best they could.” He shoves himself back and glares at Danse, eyebrows drawn into angry jags. “And it wasn’t enough, okay?”

“And what do _you_ know of their motivations?” Danse snaps. “Misguided idiots thinking a _machine_ is even capable of choice—”

“Free will is _not_ a glitch!” Deacon hisses, hands tucked into white-knuckled fists. “If you could just haul your head out of your ass long enough to _look_ —”

Danse bulls forward, voice shaking. “And thinking that they’re doing those synths a _favor_ by giving them _memories_ and _families_ and things to _want_ and _lose_ and—”

“I have known I am a machine for all my existence, Monsieur Danse,” Curie says archly, and her tone stops him cold. “I have always been aware of my desires and my goals. I have adapted and changed and yes, it is a result of my excellent programming, but I have known loss. I have known companionship. I have known pleasure, even as a machine.” Her eyes glitter, voice trilling deceptively sweet. “And there is no shame in being a machine. If you believe otherwise, you are welcome to inform Monsieur Codsworth.” Her fingers tap against her arm, her foot against the floor, soft ticking like the fluid in his veins, like the sudden-dry throb of his tongue.

“I— I meant no disrespect, Miss Curie,” he says stiffly.

“I am sure you did not,” she replies, equally stiff.

 

* * *

 

“I _want_ ,” Danse says, hands clenched into fists, nails biting into his palm. Swallows past the hot lump in his throat, words scraping out like sandpaper. Repeats himself. “I want you to bend me over the bed and use me at your pleasure.” Gaze fixed over Strong’s shoulder. Already naked, not even bothering with words as he entered Strong’s room and stripped down.

Strong grunts. Still fully clothed, though ‘fully’ for him means the loincloth. “What is ‘used’?”

“Fuck me as hard and rough as you’d like. I can take it. I _want_ to take it,” he says, and it’s no easier to say this third time, putting lie to the power of fairytales and happy endings. This ending will be happy enough for him, because even as a machine he has _choice_ , and is allowed to want. Because wanting this mutant is surely nothing supplied by either the Institute or the Railroad, making it wholly _his_ , as strange as that may be.

“Why?”

Danse balks. “Why does it matter?”

Strong scrunches his face, grimacing. Words even slower than usual. “Because Strong not want to use.” He licks his lips, as if taking time to gather his thoughts. “If Danse hurt, Strong not want.”

“I am not hurting,” Danse says, too quick to be anything but defensive. The guilt tastes like copper on his tongue. “And you won’t hurt me.” Even now he’s unsure whether that’s trust or indifference, whether he knows Strong won’t hurt him or whether he doesn’t _care_ if Strong hurts him.

“What if Strong not want as hard as Danse?” Strong asks. Voice bland, brow knit, questioning. It says something of their new companionship that Danse can better read the man’s expressions through his distorted features.

“I very much doubt that.” Because Strong is genuine in his wants, his cravings— and Danse fears that he cannot give voice to his own desires. Easier to let the mutant take control.

Strong shakes his head, snorting. “Strong want slow.” Glares, forehead creasing. “If Danse not want, go.”

Danse swallows. “Are you dismissing me?”

Strong puckers his mouth, struggling with his words. “Sex is for fun. Not for hurt. Not for using people.”

Danse shivers. Every nerve flayed, more exposed than when he had merely taken off his clothes. He bites his lip. “Please, Strong.” Voice small, pathetic. “I want to feel you in me.”

“Danse okay?”

Danse nods.

Strong kneels on the bed, unstrapping his loincloth. “Then okay.”

Danse readies himself on his hands and knees. Palms pressed into the mattress, toes pointed, back flexed— as open an invitation as he can make it, though he gasps startlement when Strong lifts his hips, tugging Danse back so he spills, inverted, into Strong’s lap as the mutant starts nuzzling into the curve of his ass. Broad, wet tongue lapping up from his balls, over the taint and against the line of his ass. Breath hot against his skin, and Strong’s cock bobs temptingly, enticingly, in front of Danse’s mouth—

Danse licks his lips, then wraps them around Strong’s cock. Limited from this angle, the curve odd against his tongue, like it’s trying to slide down his throat— not bad, exactly, but unexpected. Strong rumbles with pleasure, swirling his tongue over Danse’s asshole, and Danse gives a soft whimper, mouth full of cock and his tongue slipping, down, back, trying to suck but it’s difficult with Strong anchoring him in place and rimming him. So instead Danse wraps a hand around Strong’s cock, strokes up and down. Both tempting and maddening, unable to do more than that. Immobilized by his own smallness, his inability to reach— caught only in heat, the wet obscenity pressing his ass, probing _into_ him, a hard push of soft tongue and he whimpers, “Strong, please. Please.” Because if he feels want, he must be more than a machine— and if machines can feel want, maybe he’s not an abomination. Or at least they’re paired in their depravity, synth and mutant.

Strong picks Danse off his lap, cock sliding from Danse’s mouth with a wet pop as he sets Danse on the bed. Danse holds his position, breath held between his teeth, captive in his lungs. And another scrape of the lube bottle, a wet squelch as Strong presses that lubricated finger to his ass, pushes— in, in. Danse practically sucks him in, groans as Strong slides the second finger in. One thrust, two thrusts— Strong’s hand rests on Danse’s back, heavy comfort, soothing against his skin.

And this— this is something Danse is loathe to lose, a private confession. His memories are false, but _this_ is real. Strong’s heat against his back, Strong’s fingers fucking him slow and full. If he cannot claim the past, he will claim the present. _This_ is something to enjoy.

“Strong, please fuck me,” he groans, and he is not Paladin Danse, not any more— the rank hung heavy on his neck, but he is Danse, and he is here, grounded in his skin. Static in his veins, hair raised to prickles, his whole body electric with desire as Strong pulls those fingers out, places his cock against Danse’s ass.

Even though they’ve already done this once, Danse holds his breath. Exhales with a grunt, a gasp past his teeth. Memory is only so strong next to presence, and even the weight of Strong’s shadow feels fuller, darker, longer. He shivers as Strong presses in, pushes— and his ass stretches, eager. Strong moves slow, maddeningly so, until Danse pushes back, his thighs wide and bucking onto Strong’s cock. He engulfs Strong, practically sucks him in with a wet slap, his ass flush against Strong’s groin. His dick hangs low, rubbing the mattress, and he groans with the effort of staying open, hands twisted into the sheets.

Strong sits back— and that’s a strange sensation, the fullness of his cock sliding, Strong tilting his weight back and half-rolling to the side, dipping the mattress as Strong tucks Danse’s knees closer together. Danse crosses his ankles, pushes. Makes a tighter fit, but lets him brace himself better as Strong fucks him with slow thrusts— not the roughness Danse was craving, but something heavy as an ocean wave, full and deep.

Strong puts his weight on his elbows, framing Danse’s shoulders. Curls himself down, cock buried in Danse and his breath hot against Danse’s neck. A scrape of teeth and tongue on his skin, balls slapping wet against his ass. All heat and pressure, pushing Danse into the bed. No choice but to take it, to roll with the thrusts, accepting— a warm and open welcome, letting Strong set the pace, making himself nothing but flesh and skin, breath and heat, sweat sticking hair to his scalp and his breath rasping out his throat.

Danse grinds into the bed, his cock in rough friction with the sheets. God, but it’s good. Not broken, but _opened_ , his whole body in wrap around Strong’s. He shifts, grips Strong’s forearm, thumb pressing tight on the inner flesh of the wrist. Something to grip, something to hold. Strong’s full weight above him, and he feels impossibly small, little more than a vessel to take, and take, and take…

He loses track of time, breath. Can’t count the minutes so much as the rhythm of his heart, the messy twist of the sheets and the knowing that god, god, his dick’s rough, chafed against the bedding, but between the pressure in his ass and the feel of the sheets, that’s okay, that’s enough, he’s going to come anyway, and he whimpers, tries to say something about it, but his cock twitches and he spurts onto the sheets with a strangled cry.

“Danse okay?” Strong asks, pulling back.

Danse groans, clenching his buttocks. Trying to grip, to keep that pressure. “Yes. I— I would like you to finish inside me.”

Strong grunts, pushing onto his hands. Less weight on Danse’s back now, but Strong grips his waist, starts thrusting— and it’s harder, deeper than he’s done before, but Danse thinks _yes, maybe_ and perhaps Strong was holding back until then, because it’s not much longer until Danse feels the rush of heat up his ass, dripping inside as Strong pulls out with a wet squelch.

“Was good?” Strong asks, curled on his side and facing Danse. His breathing, hard, ragged— not quite breathless, not like Danse himself, but his green skin gleaming with sweat and fluid.

Danse nods, shivering. Curls to his side. Wants to linger in the warmth of the sheets, the cooling sweat and the strange and musky smell of sex and rutting. He wanted, yes. He got what he wanted. But now what to do after the want?

“Were you holding back?” he asks finally.

Strong gives a half shrug, somewhat lost as he mashes his face into the pillow. He wraps an arm over Danse’s body, broad thumb pressing against the dip of the hip. “No rush.”

“Why not?”

Strong snorts. “Sex like food. Good food, you eat— one bite, two bites. Gone. Only have memory. Is okay sometime. Sometimes eat slow. Make last longer. More to remember.”

Danse rolls the thought around in his mouth. Tasting it. “So this was good for you, then?”

Strong nods, eyes shut.

“Even though— even though I’m a synth?”

Strong snickers, not opening his eyes. “Yes. But more than synth.”

Danse snorts, lips twisting bitter and self-deprecating. The words hang heavy off his lips, cold as dead clay. “What, a good man?”

Strong _laughs_ at that, cracking his eyes open and petting Danse’s head, hand heavy over his neck. “No. Not good person.” He shrugs, mattress groaning, fabric scraping. “Good fighter. Hard worker. Good cock-sucker.” He smiles, a messy, dripping thing— and Danse thinks of all the ways he’s seen Strong, grease on his lips, crumbs on his chin. Nothing but homely honesty, messy and sincere. “Danse is many things. Not just synth.”

And it should be strange comfort, but Danse chokes at the phrasing. “Why do you sleep with me if you don’t think I’m a good person?”

“Why not? Danse sleep with Strong. Still think Strong abomination.” Nothing but blunt honesty, not even a hint of accusation.

Danse winces. “I apologize. I did— I thought. I thought many things. And I am sorry for how I have treated you.” _Used you_. “You have given me more frankness and respect than I deserved.”

Strong snorts. “Am monster. Am big. Am strong. Sometimes eat people.” He rolls his eyes. “Say sorry to others.”

“But your nature— you are more than I have given you credit for. You are more than that.”

“Strong is mirror.”

“What?”

“Is met-a-phor,” Strong says carefully, enunciating the words with a close-clipped precision that must be in echo of Curie. “Mirror not deep. Only reflect.” And before Danse can dwell on that unlikely image, Strong ruffles his hair. “Say sorry to others. Much better than Strong.”


	5. Repentance

And there may be no atonement, but he can still repent.

Danse feels parched, hollow; an empty pit without water as he makes his rounds. He offers his words with stiff formality, drawing back on the teachings of his youth. Apologies without specifics are empty words, so he attempts to fill them with truth, his tongue salted with humility.

To Hancock, he says, “I apologize for how I have treated you. You have acted with good intent and charity to those in need, and I have failed to acknowledge this.”

Hancock blinks, tilting his hat back. “The what now?” A discarded Jet canister sits on the table, and a prewar skin magazine is carelessly shoved half-under the bed.

Briefly, Danse considers if he should retry this when Hancock is sober, but he has already committed to this course of action. He flushes, tries again. “I apologize for—”

“Nah. Crew-cut, the words are pretty and all, but here’s what I’m interested in: what are you going to _do_ , not just say?” Hancock says. His eyes glitter like pools of ink, desiccated features peeling at the edges.

The words shrivel on Danse’s tongue. “I’m trying to do better.” He swallows, temple throbbing. “I am no longer in the Brotherhood, and that— that is a start.”

Hancock chuckles, thumbing one of the buttons on his coat. An idle maneuver, his other hand twirling his ever-present switchblade. “Look, you and your old gang made life plenty hard for a lotta folks just tryin’ to survive. It’s good that you gave up that shit,” he says, but his eyes glitter like he knows the truth between leaving and being cast out. “But what’s that gonna do now for us?”

“I am trying,” Danse says dully. “I am following Curie’s directives, and I am—”

“And that’s a start. But the thing I’m trying to say is,” Hancock says, flicking the blade shut and dropping it into his pocket, “I accept your apology, but I’m more interested in how you treat the next ghoul you run into, you get me?”

Mutely, Danse nods.

 

* * *

 

To Curie, Danse says, “I apologize for treating you as less than human.”

Curie looks up from her lab notes, columns of numbers and figures next to her neat handwriting. She smiles. “Apology accepted, Monsieur Danse. In the spirit of inquiry, I must ask: do you think you would have reached this apology if you had not recognized your own nature?” Her words are scalpel-soft, her teeth dazzling.

Danse balks, shame blotching his cheeks. “If I had not been discovered as a synth, then— I suppose I would still be with the Brotherhood.”

“Then this is no apology, Monsieur Danse,” she says firmly, turning her head down to her paperwork once more. “I appreciate your effort, but this is unproductive to both of us.”

Danse clenches his fists by his sides, nails biting his palms. “I am trying—”

Cait saunters from the next room, a dirty rag slung over her shoulder and a bucket of suds in her hand. She drops the bucket to a floor with a heavy thump, ignoring the soapy water sloshing over the edge, and scowls. “What she’s saying is that you’re not apologizing to her because you’re sorry. You’re apologizing because you figure you’re no better than she is. If the Brotherhood made an exception for you, ‘Good synth! Go shoot the others!’ you’d still be treating her like shit.”

“I hold no grudge,” Curie says softly, finally looking up from her notes. She taps her pencil against the paper, lips thin. “I do appreciate the work you have done for myself and for Sanctuary. I trust your actions more than your speech. But I do not trust that you have reached your own conclusions, only that circumstances have forced you to accommodate.”

Danse fights the tremble in his shoulders, the tightness in his calves. His nails are dug so deep he’s sure they’ll leave white crescents when he unclenches, and he fights to pull his words out, like links of chain unspooling from his gut. “I cannot speak for the man I was, or whom I thought I was. I can only speak for the man I am today. And you are right. I doubt I would have changed my opinion if I had not been forced to leave the Brotherhood. I am— I am sorry for that. I cannot make up for that through regret. Only through action.”

Curie studies him, grey eyes cool and unblinking. Suddenly, her face creases into a smile, fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Impossible to think of this woman as anything less than human, impossible to think he thought of her as a mere robot— and she says, “Your apology is accepted.”

 

* * *

 

To Nick, Danse says, “I apologize for dismissing you as a thing.”

Nick snorts, cupping a cigarette in his wire hand and exhaling smoke through his ruined cheek. “I accept.”

“I know I have no right to your forgiveness, but I— wait, what?” Danse blinks.

Nick chuckles, yellow eyes flaring bright. “I accept. Costs nothing to accept an apology. Forgiveness is something else, but we can work on that.”

“I must say, you are the first person to readily accept my apology,” Danse says numbly, hands dangling at his side. Useless, just like his words.

Nick puts his left hand in his pocket, raising the bare wires of his right hand to eye level. Squarely in front of his face, forcing Danse to meet his gaze through the metal bars. “You’re not the only one with a scramble of human memories. I was just forced a little earlier to realize I wasn’t human.”

“I don’t even know whose memories I really have,” Danse admits, slumping against the wall next to Nick. He raises his hand to scratch his jaw, stubble catching under his nails. “I feel like I owe them, somehow.”

“Don’t get mired in that other person,” Nick warns, flicking ash from the tip of his cigarette. “And I’ve seen Railroad work; you’re probably not just one person anyway. Bits and pieces, enough to be unique, nothing to be incriminatingly identifiable.”

Danse gnaws his lip, glancing sideways at Nick. Strange to think that Nick’s the one with the intact memories, one whole personhood under scrap-metal skin and scavenged pieces, bits of gear and wire requiring regular maintenance. Danse is one intact creation, but for the patchwork memories and scavenged history.

“Do you think it would have been easier for you, had you been one of the newer models?” Danse asks, after the silence has settled without ripple.

Nick snorts. “In some ways? Maybe. But even that’s only conditional acceptance.” He grins, plastic tongue rasping against his metal teeth. “It’s only easier as long as they don’t know you’re a synth.”

 

* * *

 

Nick tells Danse where to find Deacon, so Danse knocks on the door at Piper’s place. Tentative, knuckles raised for a second rap before Piper calls, “Come in!”

Danse scuffs his boots against the mat on the way in, then finds Piper and Deacon in the kitchen over floured boards. They each have four strands of dough, the tops pinched together and the strips woven through one another. They’re each halfway through, Piper muttering, “Over, under, over,” as they weave from right to left, braiding the loaf.

“Is that challah?” Danse asks, his original apology lost under the soft weight of memory. Even if they’re not truly his lived experiences, they are not so easily partitioned.

“Mhm,” Piper mutters, tongue between her teeth. She exhales, blowing a strand of hair from her eyes. “Sorry Danse, just lemme finish here. I keep losing my place.”

Danse gulps. No longer has the heart to say he came to speak with Deacon. “May I help?”

“Sure. Grab a board, pat some flour,” Piper says, waving vaguely to the side. “Do you know how to make the strands?”

The dough is light and sticky, strange and familiar. He almost tastes a golden sweetness on the back of his tongue, like raisins and almonds. “It has been a while.” His mind remembers, if his hands do not.

“We can do that together then.”

Danse leans against the counter and watches them finish the loaves. Deacon’s loaf is surprisingly neat, a graceful, uniform shape that he sets on an oiled tray. Piper’s braid is somewhat lumpy at the top, so she unpinches the dough and redoes the braid there, patting it back into an even pattern. Her loaf joins Deacon’s, and she covers them with a towel.

“So! What brings you here?” Piper asks, pinching out four lumps of dough.

Danse unsticks his tongue from his teeth. “I came to apologize to Deacon.”

“Huh. That’s a first,” Deacon says. He’s still wearing those ridiculous shades, made even more ridiculous by specks of flour on the lens. He uses a rolling pin to flatten a portion of dough.

“I apologize for my unfounded distrust of you. I have been unnecessarily hostile when you have been nothing but a loyal friend to our companions and our cause.”

Deacon pulls the dough back on itself, rolling it under his hands and smoothing it. Danse’s hands twitch in response, ghost-memory apparently written into his muscles. “Huh. We might disagree on cause, but I’ll take it. At least the stick’s out of your ass.”

“As long as you boys play nice, now,” Piper reminds them, already rolling her dough between her hands to form a long spindle.

“I _am_ playing nice!” Deacon protests.

“As long as he plays nice back,” Danse says gravely. He sprinkles flour over another board, finally starting on his strands. He takes three even portions of dough, then eyes Piper and Deacon’s before adding a fourth. He may not trust his own competence on the more complex braiding, but at least he can follow along. Working the dough into a flat length, he says, “I am surprised you have been this kind to me. I thought you hated synths.”

Deacon clicks his tongue, shaking his head, but Piper answers.

“He means me, Deeks. That one infamous article.” Deacon sighs, and Piper’s shoulders slump. “And no, I don’t hate synths. Folks like Curie or Nick? Just fine. Great, even. I’m sure I’ve met other synths like you and just didn’t know it, or they didn’t know it.” She swallows, working another piece of dough. As if she might pummel her frustrations into it through her rolling pin. “The ones I hate are the Institute spies. I hate the fear and uncertainty that the Institute leaves. I hate how they split communities. I hate how they divide us. I hate seeing people’s family disappear without warning, or the way people sometimes reappear and you might be grateful, but there’s always that doubt…”

Her voice trails off, and she pinches her four strands of dough together. “No. I don’t hate synths. But I do hate the Institute. And that kind of distinction? Doesn’t make headlines. I want to put the truth out there, but sometimes you gotta scream to be heard.”

“Was it worth it?” Danse asks.

A long pause, her thumb sliding along the braid. “I was chasing truth and forgot chesed.” Piper sighs. “I have regrets, but… I don’t know. Was the Brotherhood?”

Danse swallows, but finds no answer.


	6. Camaraderie

As Strong sets a basket of biscuits on the table, Danse stiffly announces, “I would like to propose a group training exercise. Wrestling is an excellent form of physical discipline and would promote camaraderie— “

“What, sweaty shirtless grappling?” Deacon asks, ginger eyebrows raised high over his shades. “Can I watch?”

“Only way I’m wrassling is if you keep your shirt on,” Cait snorts around a mouthful of sausage, grease shining her lips. As Curie dabs her chin, she adds, “You want in, treasure?”

“My clinic schedule is quite full today, thank you,” Curie demurs.

“Not even with me?” Cait teases.

Curie smiles wide, the skin around her eyes crinkling. “I can wrestle you any time you wish, dear Cait.”

“This is purely for hand-to-hand training purposes!” Danse sputters.

“Yeah, it’s just _personal_ training, nothing to get your jockstrap tangled over,” Cait says, rolling her eyes.

“And _personally_ , I’ve got an article to finish,” Piper says apologetically. “Sorry, Danse.”

The rest bow out with variations of “no,” “thank you,” and Nick’s helpful reminder to “keep a shirt on,” but finally Strong rumbles, “Strong like wrestling.”

“Are you going to make _him_ wear a shirt?” Danse asks accusingly.

Cait snorts, slapping a hand against Strong’s ribs. “Hell no. Have you tried getting shirts in his goddamn size? Big goon rips ‘em to shreds.” She smiles, broken-bottle sharp. “‘Sides, a half-naked asshole’s trying to get close to me, I’m punching his nuts. You want me to punch your nuts?”

Danse winces, resisting the urge to shield his groin. “No.”

“Strong’s nuts safe?” Strong asks.

Cait snickers, shaking her head. “I’m not going anywhere _near_ your nuts.”

So after breakfast they find an empty patch of ground beside the mutfruit, Deacon sauntering behind them. Danse drags his foot in the dirt to form a crude box of space. “Now, we’ll have to establish some baselines. No hits below the belt, no dirty tricks, no—”

“Are we training or playing?” Cait demands, crossing her arms. “Look, you want to show some moves, fine, that’s one thing. But the only unfair fight’s the one you lose. If some raider grabs me, I’m gonna use every goddamn dirty trick I know.” She laughs. “Hell, I’ll make up new ones.”

Danse twists a fist into the front of his shirt, tugging it down. “But training exercises should encourage fair play and—”

“She’s got a point, soldier-boy,” Deacon calls, leaning against a nearby house with his arms crossed, a too-casual smile on his face. “Sounds like you got different goals.”

“I’m not planning to break your knees or rip your nuts off,” Cait grumbles, rolling her eyes, “but asking me not to nut-punch you just means you’re not gonna be expecting nut-punches in a real fight. Which doesn’t do _you_ any favors, if you’re not wearing that giant can.”

“Strong want to see nut-punch.”

“Whose side are you on?” Danse sputters.

Strong snickers, eyes glittering. “Strong’s.”

Cait laughs, bracing her knees wide and settling into her stance, fists raised. “Come on then. No nut-punches. This time.”

Danse hesitates, biting the tip of his tongue.

Cait jerks her chin. “C’mon.”

Gut twisting, Danse braces himself in front of her. Neutral stance, solid.

She jabs twice. He twists his forearm to block, but she abruptly drops into a squat and explodes forward. Her knee slides between his legs, her broad arms wrapped around his thighs, tight against his hamstrings. She cuts an angle with her other leg, _lifts_ — and he has just enough presence of mind to breathe out before she slams him onto his back. She swings her knee over him, straddling his belly and bearing down. He keeps his arms raised to shield his face, elbows on her thighs, chin tucked — but she leans over, spitting just above his eye and he flinches, jerking his hands up to wipe his forehead. She immediately scoots forward, ass on his sternum and fists poised above his exposed face.

“You’re trained too nice’n clean,” she comments, patting his cheek. “You okay?”

“I have taken worse,” Danse says, breath still rattling his lungs. He wipes his forearm across his face, belatedly adding, “Nice takedown.”

“Thanks. Cage-fighting gets you lots of practice,” Cait snorts, slapping her hands together.

“I didn’t know you were a cage-fighter,” Danse says, blinking as she dismounts.

Cait rolls her eyes, offering him a hand up. She pulls him to his feet with a grunt. “You never asked.”

Danse’s tongue feels thick and awkward as he swallows. “Fair.”

They square off again, and Cait opens with another jab.

Danse blocks, retaliating with a counter-punch. His knuckles graze her cheek as she drops into a squat. Won’t be caught the same way twice, so he lowers his level as she slides forward. The side of his elbow mashes her face as he kicks his lead leg back, out of her grip. He steps his other leg out, twisting his hips to drive her into the ground.

She catches herself on her forearms and he has an arm wrapped under her, the other trying to move into a choke, but she grabs his wrist and slams her knee into the outside of his, creating a gap as she moves her inside hand down to grab his ankle. Quick and slippery, she ducks her head out of his arm, pulls, and flips him onto his back.

He raises his hands to guard his upper body, expecting a choke hold— blinks when she rises to her feet instead. “You don’t do chokes?”

“The chokes I do would fuck you up,” she says matter-of-factly. Snorts, spitting. Her saliva creates an impressive arc before spattering in the dirt. “We got fundamental differences, soldier-boy.”

“Best three out of five?” Deacon asks cheerily.

“Some other time,” Danse allows. “I think I need more practice with my basics.” He pauses. “And the chokes. We could practice technique, at least.”

Cait laughs— and it’s a strange warm sound, something he doesn’t recall hearing from her before. No sharp-edged mockery to it, no bite. Perhaps because he never earned this warmth. “Okay, that I can help with. Drills, not sparring. I can use some practice too.”

Strong growls, thumping his chest. “Strong want fight!”

“You heard the man, Danse,” Deacon says, and if his smile stretches any wider his face might crack. “Time to get up close and personal with our favorite goon. Mano-a-mano. Show us that strength and discipline.”

Cait scuffs her heels against the ground, chuckling. “Usually it’s the winner who fights.”

“What can I say? As pulse-pounding as that match was, I want to see how Danse handles a mutant,” Deacon says, waggling his eyebrows.

“With sufficient speed and skill, the size difference means _nothing_ ,” Danse says stiffly.

Deacon cocks his head, grinning wolfishly. “I wasn’t the one saying anything about size difference.”

“Humans talk too much,” Strong growls as Danse opens his mouth. “Strong want more fighting!”

So Danse and Strong square off, and Danse rapidly reviews all his prior Brotherhood training on how to engage with a mutant. (And ignoring the small voice that tells him he has already more thoroughly _engaged_ with a mutant than any proper Brotherhood soldier should have dreamed.) Most advice had been to seize a weapon and to outsmart rather than out-muscle them, if necessary— but this close to Strong, close enough to smell his skin, warm and sour, the lingering garlic and onion from breakfast— all Danse can think is that Strong is _enormous_.

His cock twitches treacherously at the thought of being pinned to the ground.

“As referee of this fine display of testosterone and masculinity, I decree your fight starts… _now_!” Deacon calls.

Quick. He must be _quick_. It will be impossible to lift Strong, so he must rely on speed and technique against Strong’s sheer bulk.

He doesn’t bother with a feint, instead takes a quick-step with his left, slides between Strong’s legs and pushes forward— shoulder on Strong’s waist, but his position feels unsteady, not enough grounding— but to sink any lower would mean to lose position, to trade balance for leverage. Drive forward, right leg hooking behind Strong’s ankle, _push_ —

Danse slides down Strong’s shin, ass hitting the mutant’s foot.

Strong blinks down at him.

“And in a stunning maneuver, Danse humps Strong’s leg,” Deacon says, deadpan. “Need some help there, soldier? Lube, perhaps? Rolled up newspaper?”

“I see this requires recalculations on my part,” Danse says stiffly, rising to his feet and discreetly adjusting his pants to obscure the soft bulge of his erection. If Strong felt it, at least the mutant’s silent.

“Try again?” Strong suggests, settling into a square stance, feet braced.

Danse nods, lips pressed thin. Sweat trickles down the edge of his mouth, salt on his lips, and this close to Strong, he thinks of sweetness, the warm fullness of Strong’s cock on his tongue.

Mind to the task at hand.

He tries again, ignoring how carefully still Strong holds himself, how much coddling this must be— Strong not even trying to defend himself, to step sideways or evade Danse’s step and hook, and Danse _finally_ gets the forward trip to work correctly, hand gripping above Strong’s knee and shoulder pushing into Strong’s waist as the mutant falls backward, feet flying up.

Danse slips, sliding down Strong’s body as his own feet leave the ground, and Strong’s hand curls, gripping Danse’s shoulder and Danse has just enough time to think _at least it’s not a choke_ before he reaches out, flailing for Strong’s thigh. Strong’s wide, though— he finds the broad meat of the quadriceps, not the grip he was hoping for to swing his legs across and re-establish control.

Strong groans, an immense body-quake of movement before he simply rolls over— no finesse, no technique, simply rolling until Danse is pressed flat on his back, Strong straddling his body and a distant part of Danse’s brain registers this as a classic full mount, but the more distressingly immediate portion of his brain remembers that this was one of the positions he’d used to blow Strong, head cushioned on pillows and Strong’s cock passing his lips in shallow thrusts.

He can’t give in.

He _refuses_ to give in.

“Fight’s not over,” he grits between his teeth, bucking his hips and keeping his hands raised. Not like he could fully block one of Strong’s fists, not if Strong were intent on actually hurting him— but he won’t make this easy. Bad enough to lose so ignominiously to Cait, but at least she had speed and far more practical training. But he refuses to think he’ll lose to Strong on sheer basis of _weight_.

(And as helpless and used as he wanted to feel— each time had been by _choice_. Every time he’d bent himself over or knelt to service Strong, that had been a _decision_. Something that he is just beginning to understand.)

His cock grinds against Strong’s ass, but more important is the pressure of Strong’s weight against his belly, his hips— not Strong’s full weight by any means, the mutant even now putting weight on his knees rather than deliberately trying to press Danse into the ground— but Danse lifts his foot, sets it outside Strong’s leg. Can’t reach Strong’s ankle, but ends up hooking somewhere on Strong’s shin as he grabs Strong’s arm, lifting his torso to grab up by the triceps. Arm slides down after, Strong’s fist flat in the dirt and pinned in place by Danse’s elbow. He bucks, thrusts— tries to roll sideways, but it’s still not enough to do more than jostle Strong, who settles on Danse’s belly with bone-crushing weight.

Gasping, breathless, Danse tries again— this time, pushes Strong’s hands up, presses his feet flat on the ground and pushes, bounces, is rewarded by Strong falling forward, the sudden lift of pressure off Danse’s body. Danse immediately puts both hands on Strong’s right leg, _pushes_ , extends his own leg on that side and wriggles through that small opening as Strong catches himself on his elbows.

Danse can’t get fully out, not yet. Snakes his foot around Strong’s knee, and he’s smeared with dirt and sweat and not all the sweat’s even his own, rough and gritty beneath his shirt as he slides down, full body in contact with Strong’s as he tries to recover position, but that also means his cock rubbing down against Strong’s belly, and he _feels_ Strong’s hard-on in response, and there’s only so much Strong’s loincloth can hide, but Cait and Deacon are _watching_ —

“I think— I think we’ve acknowledged you are the superior combatant,” Danse gasps. Breathless from the match, yes. Certainly nothing else.

“And here we thought you were _just_ starting to get physical!” Deacon catcalls. He makes an infuriating clicking noise with his tongue, the kind to let everyone know he’s winking under those ridiculous sunglasses.

“Strong like wrestling,” Strong says, grinning. Sits down, an extra grind against Danse’s cock, and that _has_ to be deliberate, though he says nothing else as he rises to his feet. He offers Danse a hand up, though Danse finds his gaze inextricably drawn to watching for Strong’s bulge as he accepts. Just a smooth ripple of leather, no hint as to the massive cock beneath it, so maybe their intimacy will go unnoticed.

“First mistake was trying to go straight for the ground,” Cait says critically.

Danse’s neck prickles with resentment. “And how would you have done it?”

Cait hooks her thumbs into her belt, sauntering into the dirt square. “Strong, want a go?”

“Always go with Cait,” he says gravely.

Danse backsteps out of their way as Cait and Strong face off. As soon as Deacon says ‘go!’ she slams her elbow into Strong’s solar plexus, the mutant doubling over as if on cue while she twists, foot behind his ankle and tripping him so he thuds onto his back, dust flying. Rather than engage or attempt to establish a hold, she mimes stomping his knees.

“That’s not wrestling!” Danse sputters.

Cait whoops, raising her middle fingers. “It gets the fuckin’ job done!” The sun catches her hair in red halo, mistress of victories.

From the ground, Strong laughs, a warm belly-sound, rich and full. “Is good! Cait good fighter!”

“And there you have it,” Cait says, grinning. She slaps his shoulder as he sits up. “That and a beer’ll buy you my thanks.”

“Strong will buy beer,” he says, with all the solemnity of a formal contract.

Danse would be happy to leave them alone at this point, since he had already promised to help Sturges with patching the walls around Sanctuary and frankly, this exercise lasted less time than he thought it would, but as he turns, Cait snags her arm around his shoulder and grinds her knuckles into his head.

“Hey, idiot. _You’re_ invited too.”

 

* * *

 

Despite the invitation, they don’t actually meet for drinks at the bar until after dinner, where Hancock’s already waiting— either invited or perhaps enough of a regular that it makes no difference. Danse is unsure; despite his time in the settlement, this is his first time visiting this establishment in anything but a handyman capacity.

Strong keeps his word, buying the first round of drinks. He sips at the bottle with screw-faced intensity as Cait chugs hers back, and Deacon catcalls Nick as the synth enters the bar.

“So how badly did she beat your asses?” Hancock asks, leaning close so Danse catches the scent of something sharp and astringent off his skin.

“Fast and brutal,” Deacon says smugly.

Cait sniggers into her palm, face lighting into a broad smile as Curie scoots beside her. “Hey love! Guess how I did?”

“I was never in doubt of your prowess, dear Cait,” Curie replies, cupping her palm over Cait’s bicep and slotting her body against Cait’s.

“She’s asking for bragging rights,” Nick chuckles, cupping his hand around his cigarette as he lights it. The red flare reflects a dull cherry against his metal skin.

“Cait good fighter. Deserve beer!”

Beer becomes whiskey, which becomes Danse conscientiously abstaining as Cait laughs high and loud, whiskey-roses blooming on her cheeks as Curie spills into her lap. Deacon takes advantage of the noise to sneak his hand under the table between Nick’s legs. His body rocks as he does something that has Nick rolling his yellow-lit eyes even as Hancock chuckles low and dirty.

One of the caravaners from the next table over rises from her seat, chair scraping back loud and rough against the wooden floor and her companions applauding as she swaggers over to their table, grinning. She’s all dyed-loud curls and bright eyes, lips curled like she’s holding back giggles.

“Hey, Strong? Don’t know if it’s a good time, but my caravan just came in, so…”

Strong’s face cracks into a broken grin, pushing himself from the table and rising to his feet. Looming, impossibly huge and strangely _smug_ as he says, “Is good to see again.” He waves some clumsy approximation of goodbye at his companions before leaving with the woman.

Danse frowns, brow crinkling together. “I didn’t realize Strong was friends with any of the caravaners.”

Hancock rolls his eyes, dunking a strip of fried zucchini in mayonnaise. “What, you thought you were the only one fucking him?”

It takes Danse several frozen moments to register what Hancock said, going from uncomprehending paralysis to sputtering indignation. “What! I never— how did you—”

Hancock points his zucchini at Danse, dripping mayo onto the table. “You’re not as sneaky as you think, crewcut. Plus you moan.” He stuffs the food into his mouth, chewing as he speaks. “You bottom, right?”

Deacon leans forward on the table, smiling— and try as Danse might to search for the mockery, there’s none visible. Perhaps only behind those maddening sunglasses. “We all know, okay? You made all this elaborate tip-toe for something that nobody else gives two farts about.”

“There is no shame to sleeping with Strong,” Curie says helpfully, nothing but trilling sweetness and Danse _knows_ he’s being made fun of, and yet—

“Gotta admit, I thought about it too. What a party, right?” Hancock leers. “Shame that ghoul skin just ain’t as elastic as it used to be…”

“Oh god, shut _up_ ,” Cait groans.

Curie tactfully changes the topic, though it’s such an obvious diversion that Deacon and Hancock elbow each other, giggling, as Curie starts beaming about crop rotations and a new stimpack formula at her clinic…

When Danse finally stumbles back home, leaving the others still drinking at the bar— head heavy, thoughts blurry, slipping past one another like loose gears— he sees Strong kissing the caravaner in the doorway, a full-bodied embrace that lifts her against the wall, should be crushing her but she’s giggling, smothered against his mouth and her knees wrapped about his ribs.

Danse quashes an uneasy tightness in his gut, waiting. Not watching. Not a voyeur. But unsure, uncertain whether to interrupt, whether to simply elbow his way past, or…

Strong sets the woman down, patting her ass and making her mock-squeal as she walks away. She doesn’t even spare Danse a second glance, waving over her shoulder at Strong.

“You don’t kiss me,” Danse says quietly. Almost says, “like that,” but “at all” would be more accurate.

(Those weren’t the words he meant to say. And it’s not jealousy clotting his tongue, but shock, the ground shifting beneath his feet like the first cracks of ice on a frozen lake.)

Strong shrugs, cracking his knuckles. Rolling his shoulders back. “Never ask.”

“I didn’t realize you were seeing other people.”

Strong blinks. Scratches his head, then bursts out laughing. A big broken asphalt sound, warm and cracked. “Stupid buckethead,” he says, almost affectionately. “Never ask.”

Danse swallows, bites his tongue. Counts his breaths, the whiskey lingering on his tongue and his heartbeat ragged in his ears. Finally, he says, “There are a lot of things I never asked.”

“Is true,” Strong says agreeably.

“Are we— are we still good? Are we okay?”

Strong scratches behind his ear, tilting his head. He turns, walking inside the house, and Danse follows, uncertain of what else to do.

“Danse was buckethead. Then fuck-buddy. Now friend.” He shrugs, pushing open the door to his room. His face is hard to read, even now, higher mental processes hiding behind those coarse features and green skin. “Still friend. Still fuck. Is okay.”

“I didn’t treat you as a friend should,” Danse says stiffly, hands behind his back and even now struggling to some approximation of parade position, some way to convey the depth and sincerity of his apology. “I am very sorry for that.”

Strong snorts. “Strong got blowjobs. Is okay.”

And this must be a new sort of normal, because something clicks, finally— mechanical heart now in rhythm, all his systems going clear and sharp, or maybe it’s the mind-altering effect of the alcohol he just consumed, some mimicry of inebriation running through his synthetic system, or maybe it doesn’t matter, finally, whether this is ‘real’ and organic or programmed and artificial or maybe there have been too many blurred boundaries already but somehow, somehow, there’s nothing else for it but to step forward, one step, two steps, arms creaking out in stiff and unpracticed movement to give Strong an awkward embrace, cheek flat against the mutant’s torso. Danse still smells the woman off his skin, a whiff of hubflower and an unfamiliar soap on top of the warm-salt smell of Strong and the heat of rut and maybe, maybe this is all okay after all, Strong’s hand heavy against his back and maybe, maybe…

“Go to bed, buckethead,” Strong says gently, scooping him up.

Danse dangles, helpless as a ragdoll, cheek against Strong’s shoulder and Strong’s hand under his ass. When Strong tucks Danse into his own bed, he tucks the blankets under Danse’s chin, smoothing them in place.

And it is good. And it is enough, Strong closing the door gently behind him and walking back to his room.

Danse sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for coming on this wild ride as I return to my roots, my origins, the thing that REALLY got me into fandom: mutie smut.


End file.
